The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to two Omicron-targeting booster vaccines on Wednesday as it anticipates the potential rise of COVID-19 cases in its fall and spring. The boosters, one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer-BioNTech, are bivalent vaccines, or “updated boosters”, that are designed to protect against […] Continue reading ->
In the aftermath of a national health emergency declaration for Monkeypox, the United States has now decided to split the approved MVA-BN vaccine into five doses in an effort to stretch supply.  Some experts, however, have warned that the plan may backfire if health workers are not sufficiently trained in the intradermal skin-based jab technique […] Continue reading ->
The United States is considering shifting to intradermal injections of Monkeypox vaccine that could potentially stretch one dose of the approved MVA-BN vaccine, available only in limited quantities, into five doses, said US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf on Thursday. He was speaking at a press briefing minutes after Xavier Becerra, US Secretary […] Continue reading ->
Within a matter of days, over 50 cases of suspected and confirmed infection with the monkeypox virus have now been reported across Europe and North America, including the first reported case in the United States yesterday, said Massachusetts state officials; the case involved a man who had recently traveled to Quebec, Canada. That adds the […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization has announced an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its continued investigation of almost 200 cases of unexplained acute hepatitis in the US and Europe in a media briefing Tuesday afternoon.  Two cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, prompting health […] Continue reading ->
Nearly ten years of air pollution data for dozens of Indian cities – among the most polluted in the world – was deleted from the latest World Health Organization Air Quality database just before WHO published the report on 4 April 2022, Health Policy Watch has learned.  The Indian air quality data, spanning the years […] Continue reading ->
In its largest release of data on air quality ever, WHO has found that most of the world’s population are breathing unsafe levels of air pollutant – particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5)  and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – which cause excess illness and premature death from respiratory disease, as well as from cardiovascular disease and cancers.  […] Continue reading ->
Two years after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic on 11 March 2022, the developed world’s long-time fixation on the SARS-CoV2 virus, which has killed 6 million people, has suddenly shifted away from health to the war in Ukraine and sharply rising geopolitical tensions.  Meanwhile high-income countries have dropped […] Continue reading ->
The United States will support Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a second term as head of the World Health Organization – a move that is largely symbolic insofar as Tedros is running unopposed in the elections, scheduled for the 75th World Health Assembly, 22-28 May.  Although over a dozen countries in Europe and elsewhere lined […] Continue reading ->