ISLAMABAD – Pakistan authorities are threatening to fire healthcare workers who refuse to be vaccinated with the Chinese-donated SinoPharm COVID-19 vaccine.  In a harshly worded letter, , the Directorate of Health Services in Sindh warns frontline health care workers that reluctance to get the jab will result in “strict disciplinary action” including suspension or dismissal […] Continue reading ->
Rumours about the whereabouts of Tanzanian president John Magufuli, are intensifying as the leader who questioned the existence of the SARS-CoV2 virus was reportedly in intensive care with COVID-19 – somewhere in Nairobi or possibly now even in India. Magufuli has not been seen for almost two weeks, sparking widespread speculation about his health. His […] Continue reading ->
The Brazilian government needs to enforce “serious social measures” to contain the virus before it overwhelms its health facilities, World Health Organization (WHO)  Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the body’s weekly COVID-19 briefing. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsanaro continues to downplay the pandemic despite the country reaching its highest death rate in the past week […] Continue reading ->
Almost one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence across the course of their lifetimes. And over the past 12 months, more than one in ten women suffered from physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, according to a new WHO-led report on gender-based violence, published just a day after International Women’s Day. Gender-based violence […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVAX partners are hosting a summit next week with governments and pharmaceutical companies to address the bottlenecks in COVID-19 vaccine production and delivery. This follows a spectacular start in the past week for COVAX, the global vaccine delivery platform, which delivered more than 20 million doses of COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
Women in Africa account for a slightly smaller proportion of Covid-19 infections and deaths than men although a health expert cautions that access to testing and reluctance to being treated in hospitals could mean that women’s cases are undercounted. Unveiling findings of a preliminary analysis of COVID-19 gender-specific epidemiological data in 28 African countries, the […] Continue reading ->
The global vaccine platform, COVAX, aims to distribute 237 million doses of the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine to 142 countries by the end of May 2021, its managing partners told the media on Tuesday. Eleven million doses will be delivered this week alone, with Angola, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria getting their vaccines on […] Continue reading ->