New evidence indicating that raccoon dogs from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan may have been infected with SARS CoV2 in January 2020 was published on a shared database by China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January – but removed recently after scientists started asking questions. This was revealed at a media briefing […] Continue reading ->
Health authorities in Burundi have declared a national public health emergency response to an outbreak of circulating poliovirus type 2. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Africa region announced on Friday that polio had been detected in an unvaccinated four-year-old boy in Isale district in western Burundi and two other children who had been in contact […] Continue reading ->
Three years after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the era of hourly headlines updating death and case counts has come to a merciful end. But the virus is still killing around 1,000 people worldwide every day, and it isn’t going anywhere. As of 7 March, WHO has confirmed over 750 […] Continue reading ->
Before the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted in 2003, the World Health Organization had worked for many years to prevent damage caused by tobacco consumption with the goal of passing an international agreement on tobacco regulation. The agreement, however, was not moving forward. “The real breakthrough came as scientific evidence emerged showing the […] Continue reading ->
This week’s testimony by former CDC director Dr Robert Redfield to US Congress has reignited widespread speculation in the United States that the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in a Wuhan research laboratory rather than in animals. The scientific debate about the origins of the virus took off this week just before the three-year anniversary of […] Continue reading ->
Over the past week, there has been a steep rise in anti-LGBTQ activity organised by prominent politicians and religious leaders in Kenya and Uganda, which has sparked condemnation by health and human rights activists and fears that this will result in violence. On Thursday, Kenya’s newly elected evangelical president, William Ruto, said he would not […] Continue reading ->
No date has yet been set for the recently-elected Director General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Jean Kaseya to take over his new tasks, said acting director Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma on Thursday. But he promised that the transition period would be a smooth one, saying: “After the decision by […] Continue reading ->
Although the drafting of the proposed global pandemic accord will happen behind closed doors, civil society organisations want a say as they’re often on the ground dealing with health emergencies. This emerged during the second day of the meeting of the World Organization’s (WHO) intergovernmental negotiating board (INB), which is just starting to discuss the […] Continue reading ->
Concerns about equity and financing dominated day one of the negotiations on a global pandemic accord’s zero draft at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Geneva head office on Monday. Opening the fourth meeting of the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) that is steering the process, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyusus noted that various people had […] Continue reading ->
Merck will appeal the recommendation by the Europe Union’s (EU) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) rejects its COVID-19 antiviral, Lagevrio (molnupiravir). The decision comes after months of deliberation by European regulators, who began looking at Lagevrio, in November 2021. The CHMP said there was a lack […] Continue reading ->