ISLAMABAD – The timing couldn’t have been worse. On the same day that Bill Gates, completed his maiden visit to Pakistan to cheer on the country’s progress towards polio eradication, WHO and Malawi health authorities announced that a small child thousands of kilometers away in Malawi had been ill with polio – infected by a […] Continue reading ->
There is finally “cause for optimism” in the quest for a tuberculosis vaccine, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAD), told the opening of the sixth Global Forum on TB Vaccines on Tuesday. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, TB was the most deadly global infectious disease yet there […] Continue reading ->
GUWAHATI – Amid sharply falling COVID-19 cases, the streets in the largest city in north eastern India have started to resemble pre-pandemic days, crowded with pedestrians, vehicles, roadside vendors and hawkers jostling for space with scarcely anyone wearing masks. This follows the decision by Assam state to lift all restrictions from 15 February, removing curfews […] Continue reading ->
In a village in eastern Ghana where Comfort Tetteh grew up, many people thought it was normal for a child to urinate blood. But after studying public health, Tetteh recognized this as a sign of schistosomiasis, one of the many neglected tropical diseases that affect her community. “In the districts that I’ve worked in, everything […] Continue reading ->
Immunosuppressed individuals living in the United States and Israel have been among the first to receive a novel new “vaccine” that preventively boosts their defenses against COVID-19 infection with a cocktail of long-acting antibodies. The vaccine by AstraZeneca, branded as Evusheld, works on the principle of “passive immunization”, and contains two long-acting monoclonal antibodies (tixagevimab […] Continue reading ->
From barriers to treatment for people with hearing disabilities to preconceptions about albinism and inaccessible COVID testing for wheelchair users, participants in the Global Disability Summit took a fresh look at the wide range of discriminatory practices that an estimated 1 billion people – 15% of the world’s population – living with disabilities have to […] Continue reading ->
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Friday called on Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and COVAX, the global COVID vaccine consortium to begin procuring African-made versions of vaccines for COVID and other diseases, as soon as a network of new African manufacturing facilities, now in the making, are in full production. He spoke in Brussels at an […] Continue reading ->
Individuals who recovered from COVID-19 and then received at least one shot of the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine had a significantly lower risk of reinfection, according to a new study published Wednesday’s New England Journal of Medicine,. The study was conducted by researchers at Israel’s Clalit Health Services, in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University and Sapir […] Continue reading ->
Urban noise pollution, wildfires, and disruptions of life cycles in natural systems are all growing environmental problems with ecological consequences that require greater attention, according to the new Frontier Report published Thursday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The fourth edition of the report, ‘Noises, Blazes and Mismatches: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern’, was released […] Continue reading ->
European Union President Charles Michel congratulated African countries for their efforts to stimulate more vaccine manufacturing capacity on the continent, in a upbeat opening address at the European Union-African Union Summit, which began Thursday. But in a more sobering note Wednesday, Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, called on global health […] Continue reading ->