More R&D into already known emerging disease threats, from Mpox to Lassa fever would go a long way to both bolster developing countries’ preparedness as well as protecting the world, experts argue. Member state negotiations resume next week over a draft WHO convention on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – which is supposed to be […] Continue reading ->
A new “Zero+” version of a proposed World Health Organization pandemic accord being negotiated by member states has dropped previously strong language that conditioned use of public R&D funds to private sector commitments to price transparency and tech transfer of end products, among other measuress. However, the updated draft text, obtained by Health Policy Watch, […] Continue reading ->
Regional vaccine production features in the draft pandemic accord, but there is still a long road before this becomes a reality Aspen Pharmacare invested millions of dollars in scaling up its South African production plant to make COVID-19 vaccines – yet it never sold a single vial. Meanwhile, in a “demoralising blow”, Bangladesh’s government rejected […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has ended the global health emergency for mpox, marking the end of a 10-month juggling act by the UN health agency as it scrambled to deal with concurrent global pandemics.  The announcement arrives just days after WHO declared the end of the global health emergency for COVID-19 last Friday, three […] Continue reading ->
There is widespread speculation that the World Health Organization (WHO) will decide that COVID-19 is no longer a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)” when its expert group convenes on Thursday. The 15th meeting of the Emergency Committee for COVID-19 has been convened by the WHO Director-General in terms of the International Health Regulations […] Continue reading ->
The conspiracy-based anti-science attacks on scientists and vaccines that proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US are likely to have chilling, long-term effects on biomedicine, according to Professor Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.  The biggest casualty may be childhood vaccinations, leading to […] Continue reading ->
By the end of 2022, COVID-19 vaccines delivered by the global vaccine access initiative, COVAX,  helped to avert 2.7 million deaths across 92 lower-income countries, according a new report based on modelling by researchers from Imperial College London. COVAX’s biggest success was in low-income countries, where its vaccines were responsible for three-quarters of all deaths […] Continue reading ->