Reform and diversification of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) funding model is vital if the global health body is to avoid repeating the consequences of the US’s withdrawal in April 2020, member states have said during WHO’s Executive Board meetings. The global COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the “open secret” within the field of global health […] Continue reading ->
The demands of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic are draining resources from global health research and development (R&D) programs and disrupting clinical trials and other work, presenting a potential post-pandemic scenario of a world more vulnerable to a host of infectious threats. That’s what our organization, the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), learned after conducting extensive, […] Continue reading ->
JERUSALEM – As the countries around the globe watch Israel’s massive COVID-19 vaccine rollout to see if it can really beat back the virus, once soaring hopes that vaccines, on their own, could offer an easy way out of the pandemic are now coming back down to ground. On the positive side, the vaccine itself […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) response to COVID-19 was too slow, hampered by an antiquated pandemic alert system, lack of resources and a lack of authority with member states, according to an interim report by the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, presented to the WHO’s Executive Board meeting on Tuesday. It took the […] Continue reading ->
The world is “on the brink of a catastrophe and moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with the lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries,” declared WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his harshest rebuke to date of both countries and the pharma industry for failing […] Continue reading ->
“Escalating bilateral deals” between pharmaceutical companies and World Health Organization (WHO) member states have complicated the global body’s vaccine delivery platform, the COVAX Facility, a number of top WHO officials told the WHO’s Executive Board yesterday in the opening day of the EB’s 148th session, which focused largely on the pandemic. “Countries with bilateral deals […] Continue reading ->
After months of delay, a pared-down WHO research team charged with investigating the origins of the SARS-CoV2 virus finally arrived in China on Thursday – but two members of the team were left behind in Singapore after they tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, WHO said. In the 24 hours since, one of these two members […] Continue reading ->
Johnson & Johnson is set to release its Phase 3 COVID-19 clinical trial results in two weeks and immediately file for emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – an announcement that is likely a harbinger of positive results. This news on the development of the first one-shot COVID-19 vaccine, accompanied by […] Continue reading ->
The “almost vertical” spike in SARS-CoV-2 infections seen in many countries over the last few weeks is largely due to increased social contact and not virus mutations, WHO has said. Speaking at a media briefing on Monday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s COVID-19 Technical Lead, stated that sharp increases in transmission had occurred in a […] Continue reading ->
A US$40 million research consortium has been created to repurpose existing medicines for hepatitis, tuberculosis and malaria into long-acting treatments that can benefit low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where people often have trouble accessing medicine over and over again, Unitaid experts told Health Policy Watch. The consortium on Tuesday launched the new Centre of Excellence […] Continue reading ->