A new South African study shows that a second Johnson & Johnson dose, administered 6-9 months after the initial single-dose vaccine provided 84% protection against hospitalization from the Omicron SARS-CoV2 variant – results that even outperformed those of an earlier South African study looking at effectiveness of the two-dose Pfizer regime in the face of […] Continue reading ->
Vaccine equity advocates see huge potential in India’s decision to grant an emergency use license to CORBEVAX™, an open-license vaccine dubbed “The World’s COVID-19 Vaccine” by its developers at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine. The protein sub-unit vaccine, engineered at Baylor’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), received the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) […] Continue reading ->
A global grassroots movement of scientists based on crowdsourcing ideas, expertise, and goodwill has already generated – and freely released – more than half of the known structural information on the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. Based on this, they are now on a quest for an open-source drug that can block the virus from replicating. […] Continue reading ->
WASHINGTON D.C. (ENDPOINTS News) – The FDA on Thursday authorized another new pill to treat the Omicron variant, this time from Merck. The FDA decision follows upon a decision Wednesday authorizing Pfizer’s Paxlovid oral treatment, which the company said had proved to reduce the relative risk of hospitalization or death by 89% (within three days […] Continue reading ->
Driven by Omicron, Africa is facing a steep wave of new COVID infections – last week reporting the fourth highest number of cases ever recorded in a single week, said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday.  He was speaking at an exclusive media briefing in Geneva behind closed doors to a handful […] Continue reading ->
In what should be reassuring news for health systems the world over,  preliminary lab results suggest that Moderna’s authorised COVID booster dose of 50 µg offers 37-fold more protection against Omicron than the first two vaccine jabs after 29 days. And a 100 µg booster -comparable to the dose received in the first two shots […] Continue reading ->
As more vaccine supplies finally become available to the world’s low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), the latent challenges that should have been addressed long before have emerged. Those include vaccine hesitancy and the ability of weak health systems to mount mass vaccination campaigns amidst other pressing health needs. Global policymakers need to shift their attention from […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – The mRNA vaccine ‘hub’ being set up in South Africa aims to have a COVID-19 vaccine candidate ready for clinical trials by 2023. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) – which initiated the South Africa hub to address regional inequity – is setting up a “biomanufacturing workforce training centre” to address the […] Continue reading ->