As Africa waits for COVID-19 vaccines promised by the US and other countries to arrive, the continent’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) plans to scale up antigen testing to identify and address pandemic hotspots. “We are only at 4% vaccination rate, which means we have to continue to advance basic public health tools at our […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Gheybreyesus and French President Emmanuel Macron today broke ground at the launch of the first WHO Academy in the French city of Lyon. The Academy fulfills a commitment by the two leaders to make WHO training more widely available to member states, and more systematically offered […] Continue reading ->
US President Joe Biden has reaped praise for convening a Global COVID-19 Summit on the margins of this year’s United Nations General Assembly that placed vaccine shortfalls in low- and middle-income countries front and center of GA debates. But it remains to be seen if the big commitments repeated once more this week can break […] Continue reading ->
In the coming months, 600 million doses of single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines, manufactured in Hyderabad, are likely to be exported to Europe or the United States, at a time when India grapples with vaccinating its own citizens. Civil-society organisations are concerned that millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may end up in the […] Continue reading ->
The Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr Rochelle Walensky, has authorized millions of frontline workers in health care and school settings to receive a third COVD-19 vaccine booster dose- opening the gates for a much wider wide swathe of Americans, ages 18-64, to receive the controversial booster shots. Her […] Continue reading ->
REGEN-COV, the antibody cocktail made famous by Donald Trump when he became ill with COVID in 2020, was added Friday to WHO’s list of recommended drug treatments in updated COVID-19 clinical management guidelines, published Friday. At the same time, WHO and Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on the US pharma firm Regeneron, which […] Continue reading ->
Many children in the global south are drinking more sugary drinks than milk – thanks to the aggressive promotion of ultra-processed food to low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the past two decades. Global obesity and diabetes rates have exploded as a result of dietary changes, and these conditions have made people far more vulnerable […] Continue reading ->
The Results Report published by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria last week illustrates how COVID-19 has pushed us off track in significant ways – particularly with respect to access to tuberculosis (TB) and HIV diagnoses and treatment. But at the same time, there is better news with respect to the battle […] Continue reading ->
Africa has the highest entrepreneurship rate in the world, yet greater financial resources are needed to ensure that innovation can be implemented to strengthen health systems and the welfare of health workers, said panellists at an innovation award ceremony on Thursday. The Africa Young Innovators for Health Award, co-organised by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical […] Continue reading ->
Countries with high COVID-19 vaccination rates have pre-purchased over two billion excess vaccine doses, limiting the supplies available for low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). This emerged from a meeting on Thursday between the heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization – the multilateral Task Force – […] Continue reading ->