Although COVID-19 and monkeypox cases are declining globally, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned against complacency on Wednesday. Although COVID-19 cases were down by 80% since February, “last week, one person died with COVID-19 every 44 seconds and most of those those those deaths are avoidable,” said Tedros. “There is no […] Continue reading ->
A new initiative to introduce COVID-19 oral antivirals and national test-and-treat programmes in 10 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia was launched on Wednesday by the COVID Treatment Quick Start Consortium. The consortium will support governments to introduce and scale up access to antivirals, starting with Pfizer’s Paxlovid, in high-risk populations in Ghana, Kenya, Laos, […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations General Assembly voted to hold a summit of heads of state and other world leaders next year to find fair, long-lasting solutions for the global inequities and inadequate responses that the COVID-19 pandemic has all too painfully highlighted. Delegates to the 193-nation assembly overwhelmingly approved the resolution in a consensus vote on […] Continue reading ->
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to two Omicron-targeting booster vaccines on Wednesday as it anticipates the potential rise of COVID-19 cases in its fall and spring. The boosters, one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer-BioNTech, are bivalent vaccines, or “updated boosters”, that are designed to protect against […] Continue reading ->
Swiss drugs regulator Swissmedic announced it has temporarily authorized the first bivalent Covid-19 booster vaccine in the country. That clears the way for an eagerly anticipated second round of booster vaccinations that should better target Omicron sub-variants. Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA-1273.214 vaccine, Spikevax, is the first COVID-19 vaccine that contains messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) against two […] Continue reading ->
The Omicron-targeted boosters are coming. Almost 250 days since Omicron became the dominant variant in the US, Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday officially announced that they’ve requested an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration for their booster dose of an Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine for those 12 and older. The […] Continue reading ->
African nations need to pivot to prevention in their fight against disease by “addressing its root causes” through a greater focus on improved diets, healthier environments, and better road safety, among other factors, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the 72nd WHO Regional Committee for Africa meeting, at the opening of the weeklong session of […] Continue reading ->
When Dr. Magaly Blas, an Associate Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru, was researching the association between the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer and the human T-lymphotropic virus that causes leukaemia, she found herself travelling often to the Amazon region of Ucayali, home to an indigenous community among whom the disease […] Continue reading ->