The World Health Organization said it had released $3.5 million to support delivery of urgent medical supplies to the people of Ukraine, after Russia invaded the country on three fronts simultaneously early Thursday morning. Meanwhile, WHO’s European Regional Office called for an end to hostilities saying: “any further escalation could result in a humanitarian catastrophe […] Continue reading ->
Somewhere between 10 and 14 million people are living with viral hepatitis B (HBV) or hepatitis C (HCV) in WHO’s European region alone. And over three quarters of those people do not even know they have either disease. It’s no surprise then, that approximately 300 people die each day due to HBV and HCV -related […] Continue reading ->
The German-based BioNTech, which co-developed with Pfizer an mRNA COVID vaccine, said on Wednesday that it will set up modular “turnkey” mRNA vaccine facilities to produce the vaccine in Rwanda and Senegal in 2022 – with a fill-and-finish collaboration in Ghana as well. South Africa, which is the new hub for the WHO-supported mRNA vaccine […] Continue reading ->
Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, over ninety percent of countries continue to face ongoing disruptions to their health systems, according to a survey published Monday evening by the World Health Organization. The WHO Global Pulse Survey, the third of its kind since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, analysed responses from 129 countries, […] Continue reading ->
Cancer services remain backlogged in many parts of the world due to the effects of the two-year-long COVID pandemic – even as Europe hopes a pandemic “ceasefire that could bring us enduring peace” , said WHO’s European Regional Director Hans Kluge Thursday on the eve of World Cancer Day. Meanwhile, in Latin America, routine childhood […] Continue reading ->
Switzerland could be the next European country to lift virtually all COVID restrictions, federal officials said Wednesday – despite warnings from the World Health Organization, headquartered in Geneva, that a total relaxation of the pandemic rules could be premature. In a press briefing on Wednesday, Swiss federal government officials lifted all work-from-home and some quarantine […] Continue reading ->
France’s newest measure to tackle COVID-19 – requiring a certificate of vaccination at public places such as restaurants, cafes, cinemas, and long-distance trains – was approved by its parliament on Sunday. With lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voting 215 to 58 in favour, the law is set to be enforced in coming days. […] Continue reading ->
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, monitoring sewage for evidence of disease – in this case COVID-19 – may be on the verge of becoming mainstream. At least that is what some trend-setting researchers are hoping to detect rising SARS-CoV2 infections early and set policies based on data even before swab testing can provide it. […] Continue reading ->
The world’s first case of “flurona” – a co-infection with both seasonal influenza and COVID-19 was reported in Israel last week, as the Omicron variant sweeps across the world. Since then, small numbers of people co-infected with both viruses have been identified in other European countries as well, a World Health Organization official in the […] Continue reading ->
Two new large scale reviews of the effects of the two-dose Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in children aged 5-11 shows fewer severe effects than in older groups. Tuesday’s report, by the Israeli Health Fund Maccabi covering more than 20,000 children, comes on the heels of a similar US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study […] Continue reading ->