After year-long consultations, the Stop TB Partnership launched its global plan to end tuberculosis by 2030, which would involve the diagnosis and treatment of 50 million people at a cost of $250 billion. TB, the second biggest infectious disease killer in the world after COVID-19, has been neglected by donors in the past – yet […] Continue reading ->
Organizers say they have no plans to “sunset” the support they offer countries through the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, the global partnership to facilitate equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. The ACT-A, however, will undergo a “transition” when its strategic plan and budget ends in September, according to the World Health […] Continue reading ->
French drugmaker Sanofi is the latest pharmaceuticals manufacturer to offer a package of essential medicines at cost to health systems in the world’s most impoverished countries – including much-needed cancer and diabetes treatments. Sanofi on Monday announced the launch of the new nonprofit Impact® brand for dozens of medicines, that is supposed to ease support […] Continue reading ->
The wider use of pooled procurement in national health systems can help low- and middle-income countries get a better deal on pharmaceuticals – here’s how and why. Low- and middle-income countries are making strides in bolstering their domestic pharmaceutical sectors—evidenced by the recent deal between South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics and Belgium’s Univercells, to develop the […] Continue reading ->
The Ebola outbreak that erupted on 23 April in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today was declared to be over by DRC and WHO authorities – with fewer cases and deaths than previous episodes thanks to a swift response including vaccinations. The outbreak erupted in Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province in the country’s […] Continue reading ->
WHO and Africa CDC are trying to close a huge testing gap for monkeypox that has left some health workers reliant on symptomatic diagnosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) and African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) acknowledge they will not be able to gain a clear understanding of the monkeypox outbreak in […] Continue reading ->
Monkeypox appears to be establishing itself as a prominent danger to high-risk populations such as children, immune-compromised people and pregnant women, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned. Already, WHO said authorities confirmed cases involving two children in the UK and a child each in Spain, France and the Netherlands. Tedros, however, […] Continue reading ->
In the wake of last week’s Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, getting malaria elimination back on track is a top priority says a senior Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation official – in addition to ensuring the world learns from the COVID pandemic that “global health” is truly a global matter. The world […] Continue reading ->
The European Medicines Agency is considering the extension of the use of the smallpox vaccine Imvanex to include people at risk of Monkeypox disease, the agency said on Tuesday. Imvanex is a modified form of the vaccinia virus, which is related to smallpox and currently authorised in the European Union (EU) for the prevention of […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer and BioNTech have announced positive safety, tolerability and immunogenicity data for two Omicron-adapted COVID-19 mRNA candidate vaccines – but for an earlier strain of Omicron than those that are currently globally dominant. The two Omicron-adapted vaccine candidates were given to 1,234 participants aged 56 years and older as boosters, and “elicited substantially higher neutralizing […] Continue reading ->