The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa was expected to get worse, as 22 countries are facing surges and less than 1% of the continent’s population is vaccinated against the virus. “Cases have increased by 52% just in the past week, and deaths have increased by 32%, and […] Continue reading ->
Uganda is suffering an acute shortage of oxygen and intensive care beds as the country grapples with a deadly second wave of the pandemic that is being fuelled by five different virus variants. Regional referral hospitals and the country’s biggest hospital, Mulago National Referral Hospital, have run out of oxygen or have reported acute shortages, […] Continue reading ->
The government of Guinea is a few days away from declaring the end of the country’s Ebola outbreak after 45 days of reporting no new case, World Health Organization Officials said on Thursday. On 14 February, a new Ebola outbreak was declared in Guinea, but four months later, the outbreak will be declared over according […] Continue reading ->
Tanzania, which for months denied the existence of COVID-19 until vaccine-sceptic President John Magufuli finally succumbed to the virus in March – is now trying to belatedly join the WHO co-sponsored COVAX facility to acquire COVID vaccines. The news comes as the African continent experiences a deadly third wave of COVID-19 infections – affecting eastern […] Continue reading ->
A COVID-19 antibody cocktail developed by the US-based company, Regeneron, dramatically reduced the risk of mortality and shortened hospital stays in patients who didn’t naturally produce antibodies against SARS-CoV2 in a recent large-scale trial. Meanwhile, the US government announced that it would invest some US$3.2 billion in developing new forms of antiviral COVID-19 treatments to […] Continue reading ->
Despite the global decline in COVID-19 cases by 12% over the last week, countries in Central and South America continue to be epicenters of pandemic, with high mortality rates and insufficient access to vaccines. Over 1.1 million new COVID-19 cases and 31,000 deaths were reported in the Americas over the last week, officials from the […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – Faced with one of the sharpest increases in HIV/AIDS rates in Asia, Pakistan will ban the manufacture and import of conventional syringes from next month, government officials have told Health Policy Watch. The move is in an effort to stem a three-year increase in HIV cases – 39% of which are estimated to […] Continue reading ->
In a “groundbreaking” trial conducted in Indonesia, lab-grown mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria reduced the rate of symptomatic dengue infections by 77%, and hospitalizations by 86%, in communities where the bacteria-armed mosquitoes were released. The three-year study, which was led by the World Mosquito Program, provides compelling evidence for a new method of controlling dengue. […] Continue reading ->
Twenty-two African countries are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 infections, yet the vaccination rollouts on the continent have ground to a halt because of lack of supply. African vaccination figures, as recorded by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are dismal. Apart from the tiny island state of Seychelles, only Morocco’s vaccination rate […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to study the public health and social measures that countries have used to keep COVID-19 at bay successfully – in case there is no quick vaccine for the next pandemic. A special working group has been set up with the support of Norway to study these measures, WHO […] Continue reading ->