With cases of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 soaring in Europe and around the world, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommends everyone 60 and older get a second COVID-19 booster shot. EMA’s recommendation came shortly before WHO reconvened its COVID Emergency Committee on Friday to reconsider its global recommendations for the pandemic – and if the […] Continue reading ->
The wider use of pooled procurement in national health systems can help low- and middle-income countries get a better deal on pharmaceuticals – here’s how and why. Low- and middle-income countries are making strides in bolstering their domestic pharmaceutical sectors—evidenced by the recent deal between South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics and Belgium’s Univercells, to develop the […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer and BioNTech have announced positive safety, tolerability and immunogenicity data for two Omicron-adapted COVID-19 mRNA candidate vaccines – but for an earlier strain of Omicron than those that are currently globally dominant.  The two Omicron-adapted vaccine candidates were given to 1,234 participants aged 56 years and older as boosters, and “elicited substantially higher neutralizing […] Continue reading ->
Children infected with COVID-19 maintained strong immunity against the virus for at least 18 months, according to a preprint study that was released on Wednesday. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was conducted by Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi (KSM), the research and innovation center of Maccabi Healthcare Services in Israel, and was released on the preprint server […] Continue reading ->
One year since the establishment of the mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub, a collaboration between two leading biotech companies – Afrigen Biologics and the Univercells group – was announced on Tuesday, paving the way for the development of the first-ever African-owned COVID-19 vaccine through open-access intellectual property.  Using intellectual property from partners, the collaboration between […] Continue reading ->