The United Kingdom’s decision to delay the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine being rolled out en masse in the nation is a risky strategy – not only for those getting the vaccine, but also in terms of the longer-term public health impacts such delays could have in terms of future SARS-CoV2 mutations, some […] Continue reading ->
Ibadan, Nigeria. Several Nigerian states were unable to carry out preventative yellow fever campaigns late last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving thousands of people at risk of developing the disease as the country now faces a new winter yellow fever outbreak, Health Policy Watch learned. In early November, Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control […] Continue reading ->
Just 2 weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a plea to countries to honor their donor pledges to support its COVAX vaccine procurement scheme to equitably distribute at least a portion of forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines to countries around the world. Without donor support, the globall vaccine procurement facility that over 180 countries have […] Continue reading ->
The redacted WHO report on Italy’s pandemic response, “An Unprecedented Challenge” contained a brief timeline of events in the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China, which a number of WHO officials sought to amend or suppress even before the entire report was recalled. In fact, the so-called “China box” on the outbreak’s early […] Continue reading ->
Cape Town – As South Africa records over 930,000 COVID-19 cases and its scientists race to understand whether a new variant is driving the country’s second wave of infections, countries across the African continent are reporting an increase in cases. But there is widespread anecdotal evidence that many African countries are massively  under-reporting their COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
Nearly all countries’ development rankings have been shaken up, following the addition of new climate and environmental metrics in a UN global index designed to measure human progress, with the greatest decline in ranking position occurring among high income and developed countries. The 2020 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), […] Continue reading ->
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on Monday that it would recommend conditional marketing authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine – positioning Europe to finally begin rolling out vaccines across the continent – albeit after the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel have already moved into high gear vaccine campaigns.   Mass vaccinations were […] Continue reading ->