Under cloudy skies, Ghana’s first precious doses of Covid-19 vaccines arrived Wednesday morning at Accra’s Kotoka International Airport. They are also the first supplies to be distributed by the WHO co-sponsored COVAX facility on the African continent. The arrival of some 600,000 vaccines marks a milestone in months of effort by WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and […] Continue reading ->
EXCLUSIVE – A series of recent leaks of emails and documents surrounding the EMA’s approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech  highlight the  intense political pressures regulatory agencies are under during the pandemic – as well as an oft-forgotten aspect of vaccine approvals – the quality control of vaccines during the leap from clinical […] Continue reading ->
Rapid response platforms, particularly the messenger RNA (mRNA) platform, have changed the landscape of vaccine development, enabling the rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on Monday. Fauci, speaking at the opening of the Global Vaccine and Immunization Research Forum (GVIRF), […] Continue reading ->
More than a year into the world’s largest global health emergency, health diplomats have fought hard to ensure that every country across the globe secures access to lifesaving coronavirus health products, including vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics.   That has not happened yet, given that 80% of countries that are now rolling out vaccines are either high-income […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization is set to deploy over 100 experts to Guinea – to respond to a widening circle of Ebola virus cases in a country that was also at the epicenter of the historic 2013-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, officials said at twin press events in Brazzaville and Geneva on Thursday.      […] Continue reading ->
The European Commission will establish an emergency biodefense plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to new variants of the coronavirus that are supercharging transmission and threatening the performance of available vaccines. Creation of a voluntary licensing mechanism involving local manufacturers is one of the strategies proposed in the plan to hasten the production of updated […] Continue reading ->
The United Kingdom, Norway and UNICEF on Wednesday appealed to world leaders to give stronger backing to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ call in March 2020 for a “global cease-fire” in order to beat the COVID-19 pandemic and get vaccines to tens of millions of undocumented migrants and refugees, as well as people living in […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the profound dangers of having social, economic and health care systems that marginalize public health. To go forward, we must start by looking back. We must build a stronger foundation with better systems that can prevent future pandemics and also weave health into all aspects of society, from our workplaces […] Continue reading ->
The United States government has now secured enough COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate every American adult after purchasing an additional 100 million doses each from Pfizer and Moderna, President Joe Biden said Thursday However, currently vaccines are in short supply across the country and logistic challenges abound.  Biden used the option in the contracts negotiated last year […] Continue reading ->