One year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, a new report by the Foundation for Geneva has traced the success and the failures of the WHO and other international Geneva organisations in their response – as well as the implications for the future of multilateralism. […] Continue reading ->
With the European Union Medicines Agency (EMA) approval Thursday of Johnson and Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine, it now remains to be seen which countries and regions will be the first in line for distribution of the one-jab vaccine. Along with its comparatively low-cost, and ease of storage, the one-shot vaccine could be particularly important to […] Continue reading ->
A senior official at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has cautioned EU member states to wait until the agency has reviewed the safety and efficacy data of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine  before granting the vaccine emergency use authorization at national level, and beginning mass rollouts. Last week, the EMA formally began a rolling review of […] Continue reading ->
LYON, France – Chinese police have successfully identified a network selling counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines as far away as Africa, raiding the manufacturing premises, arresting some 80 suspects, and seizing more than 3,000 fake vaccines on the scene, according to  the global INTERPOL agency [International Criminal Police Organization]. The investigation was supported and facilitated by INTERPOL’s […] Continue reading ->
IBADAN – Nigeria has received the largest single shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from the WHO global COVAX initiative to date – with initial delivery of some 3.92 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines out of a total of 16 million doses that have been allocated to the country through the platform for the first phase […] Continue reading ->
Over 400 US organisations and 115 Members of the European Parliament declared their support this week for a waiver on intellectual property rights for COVID-19 products, due to be discussed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) General Council. Even so, WTO insiders said that consensus was more likely to build around a “third way” approach […] 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 ->