The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters until at least the end of September to enable a minimum of 10% of the population of every country to be vaccinated. Making the appeal at the WHO’s COVID-19 media briefing on Wednesday, Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Gheybreysus said support for […] Continue reading ->
IBADAN – On Sunday 1 August, two planes carrying four million doses of the Moderna vaccine from the US touched down in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. With the arrival of the new doses, Nigeria will be able to resume its COVID-19 vaccination programme which was suspended on 22 July when the Nigeria Primary Healthcare Development […] Continue reading ->
This article is the third in a three-part series on COVID-19 booster vaccines, which is an evolving discussion as more evidence emerges about the performance of vaccines against variants. Alongside the heated policy debate over the disproportionate consumption of COVID vaccines in rich countries, a handful of senior scientists are pushing back against the scientific […] Continue reading ->
Unvaccinated pregnant women infected with the Delta variant run a greater risk of contracting severe COVID-19, according to a UK study of 3371 pregnant women admitted to the hospital with symptomatic COVID-19. The study, conducted by the UK Obstetric Surveillance System (UKOSS), found that 24% of pregnant women admitted in the first wave had moderate […] Continue reading ->
A special global initiative to respond to the Delta variant has been set up, as COVID-19 cases are expected to reach 200 million within the next two weeks. Meanwhile, 70% of African countries will miss the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target to vaccinate 10% of their populations against COVID-19 by the end of September, and […] Continue reading ->
World leaders have been given clear pointers on how to transform the global food system to be more equitable, nourishing and resistant to climate change, at the end of a three-day United Nations pre-summit attended by over 17,000 delegates. Focus now shifts to the Head of State-level summit in New York in September, but UN […] Continue reading ->
As the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change exacerbate global food insecurity, African countries are committed to giving more support to small farmers – particularly women. This emerged at the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit in Italy, which opened on Monday as a precursor to a formal UN summit planned for September. Rwandan President Paul Kagame […] Continue reading ->
World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has ” high hopes” that the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) that convenes at the end of November can deliver decisions that curb harmful fisheries subsidies as well as improving access of low- and middle-income countries to COVID medicines and vaccines. But WTO members must overcome a series of […] Continue reading ->
While there has been significant global progress in curbing conventional tobacco products, newer tobacco and nicotine products such as e-cigarettes are evading regulation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2021 report on the tobacco epidemic. Some 5.3 billion people are now covered by at least one of the six tobacco ‘MPower’ control measures recommended […] Continue reading ->
Vaccine access advocates issued increasingly desperate, last minute calls upon the World Trade Organization to take action over a stalled initiative to impose a temporary waiver on intellectual property for COVID medicines, tests and vaccines – even as the initiative appeared doomed to a stalemate for the rest of the summer. Ahead of the opening […] Continue reading ->