A new initiative by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization(WHO) on Tuesday aims to help countries to promote healthier school environments – including nutritious school lunches, opportunities for more physical activity, and mental health support – for 1.9 billion school-aged children and adolescents worldwide. An estimated 365 […] Continue reading ->
Africa could start producing its own cutting-edge COVID-19 vaccines within a year via an mRNA technology transfer hub that is being set up in South Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday. But the speed at which the new hub may be able to swing into full-scale vaccine production depends on whether pharmaceutical […] Continue reading ->
Proponents of a sweeping World Trade Organization ‘waiver’ on intellectual property rights for all COVID-19 treatments, tests and vaccines face an uphill battle to reach consensus on a text ahead of a WTO General Council meeting scheduled for 27-28 July.  This is despite the recent agreement of the initiative’s opponents, including the European Union, Korea, […] Continue reading ->
From Indonesia and the Seychelles, to Chile and China itself, there are some worrisome indications that the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac COVID vaccines sold by the hundreds of millions to vaccine-strapped low- and middle-income countries may not be performing as well as expected – particularly against rapidly spreading variants of SARS-CoV-2.   At the same time, […] Continue reading ->
Children’s rights activists and anti-tobacco campaigners called on governments this week to implement stricter laws, impose hefty fines and carry out public campaigns to eradicate child labor in tobacco value chains. With an estimated 1.3 million children working in tobacco fields around the world, Adriana Blanco Marquizo, head of the Secretariat of WHO’s  Framework Convention […] Continue reading ->
Uganda is suffering an acute shortage of oxygen and intensive care beds as the country grapples with a deadly second wave of the pandemic that is being fuelled by five different virus variants. Regional referral hospitals and the country’s biggest hospital, Mulago National Referral Hospital, have run out of oxygen or have reported acute shortages,  […] Continue reading ->