Spending on health increased worldwide by 6% on average in real terms in the year 2020, according to the World Health Organization’s latest global review of health finance. The analysis found that global spending on health reached US$ 9 trillion in 2020, or 10.8% of global gross domestic product (GDP), but remains highly unequal across […] Continue reading ->
BERLIN – If a new treaty that rewrites the global rules for pandemic response is really approved by the World Health Assembly by May 2024, as planned, that will still only be the beginning of the journey. The new international accord will still have to be ratified by a critical mass of WHO´s 194 member […] Continue reading ->
In an effort to prevent the spread of monkeypox, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) signed an agreement with Bavarian Nordic to obtain 100,000 vaccine doses for Latin America and the Caribbean. That will allow PAHO to start delivering the doses to the 12 countries that requested them in September. The agreement will make the […] Continue reading ->
The fraction of monkeypox cases with no recent contact with men who have sex with men (MSM) continues to rise in the US – accounting for one-third of cases – suggesting a silent spread of the virus to other communities. Men with recent MSM contact accounted for 65.78% of cases as of 20 August, according […] Continue reading ->
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 ->
The Biden administration will no longer enforce its mask mandate for travel after a federal judge in Florida struck down the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mandate for planes, buses and trains Monday afternoon. US District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled in favor of the Health Freedom Defense Fund which had […] Continue reading ->