Researchers engaged in mosquito gene drive technologies are optimistic that new World Health Organization (WHO) guidance on best research practices will ensure that their work is safe and ethical. Such guidance also helps research results advance from laboratories to be used in the field,  the researchers told Health Policy Watch. Due to limiting regulatory frameworks, […] Continue reading ->
China told the World Health Assembly on Wednesday it will continue to support developing countries’ access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines – but it stopped short of any commitment to supplying its recently-approved Sinopharm vaccine to the WHO co-sponsored Global COVAX vaccine facility.  WHO officials had said they hoped China would join the COVAX facility, following […] Continue reading ->
In preparation for the next pandemic, the COVAX global vaccine facility “needs a pot of money, where they can be early movers” in competing for, and securing, vaccine doses. That could help scenarios like the ones seen recently, in which rich countries cornered the market on the first available COVID-19 vaccines, leading to severe shortages […] Continue reading ->
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa received its first batch of 325,260 Pfizer vaccine doses late on Sunday night, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced. This follows lengthy negotiations between the South African government and Pfizer, during which the company made “difficult and sometimes unreasonable” terms including at one stage that the country put up sovereign assets as […] Continue reading ->
Africa’s brutal experiences battling Ebola and a range of other deadly diseases helped prepare health systems to deal with COVID-19.  And by the time the SARS-CoV2 virus landed on the continent, its Centre for Disease Control (CDC) had already “established regional coordinating centres, increased lab capacity and unified surveillance networks”.  The lessons in emergency response […] Continue reading ->