China told the World Health Assembly on Wednesday it will continue to support developing countries’ access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines – but it stopped short of any commitment to supplying its recently-approved Sinopharm vaccine to the WHO co-sponsored Global COVAX vaccine facility.  WHO officials had said they hoped China would join the COVAX facility, following […] Continue reading ->
The number of pandemic-related cases and deaths have rapidly accelerated in the first four months of 2021, said WHO officials on the second day of the 74th World Health Assembly – and despite sharp declines seen in almost every region over the four weeks, the situation remains “fragile.” The “highly unstable” global epidemiological situation, combined […] Continue reading ->
  A new international expert panel launched by four international organisations on Thursday aims to blunt the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases through better understanding of human, animal, and environmental interactions that enable animal-borne diseases to break into human populations.   The One Health High Level Expert Panel will advise the World Health Organization (WHO), […] Continue reading ->
Governments and pharmaceutical companies alike must work together in combating the ‘virus of intellectual property (IP) monopolies over COVID-19 vaccines – which  further exacerbates inequality and lack of access to vaccines for vulnerable groups.  That was the uptake of a group of experts speaking at a webinar Wednesday on “The Virus of IP Monopoly Capitalism”’ […] Continue reading ->
In preparation for the next pandemic, the COVAX global vaccine facility “needs a pot of money, where they can be early movers” in competing for, and securing, vaccine doses. That could help scenarios like the ones seen recently, in which rich countries cornered the market on the first available COVID-19 vaccines, leading to severe shortages […] Continue reading ->
A draft “Rome Declaration” to be issued at next Friday’s G-20’s Global Health Summit, co-hosted by Italy and the European Commission (21 May), makes a series of 10 sweeping commitments to ensure equitable access to vaccines; expand medicines manufacturing capacity; assure WHO access to sites posing an outbreak risk; and invest in global health systems.  […] Continue reading ->