A new US $200 million program, financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to strengthen health data systems in developing countries. USAID is currently developing the scope of this project, including country participation, according to a spokesperson from global health NGO and partner on the project, Vital Strategies. Strengthening health information systems […] Continue reading ->
This week, the Africa Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC) will be launching a continent-wide antibody study to measure the true extent of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, where reported coronavirus cases are much lower than initial dire predictions. Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong announced the study at a regular Thursday press briefing. Just a […] Continue reading ->
Russia’s speedy approval of a COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday has drawn widespread criticism from Health Ministers, researchers, and even a Russian pharma industry group.  However, it has also spurred interest and offers to collaborate on testing the new vaccine in other countries, including from quarters as farflung as Israel and the Philippines. The Russian COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
More than US $100 billion will be required just to scale-up manufacturing and ensure worldwide distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in prepared remarks at a WHO press conference on Monday. He said that the World Health Organization’s ACT Accelerator consortium has received only 10% of the funding that […] Continue reading ->
A World Health Organization spokesperson on Friday said that the Organization is not well-positioned to make specific recommendations about when, where, and how travelers should be tested or quarantined for COVID-19 as countries reopen aviation, deferring the policy question to national governments. “Some of it is really dependent on what your national authorities ask of […] Continue reading ->
Environmentalists and scientists have called out the recent Indian Supreme Court decision directing the government to install “smog towers” in Delhi as an injudicious move that will lead to a waste of public money. The opposition escalated after the Court on Tuesday, ordered the government to begin installing the smog towers within the next week. […] Continue reading ->
Amidst the battle against a new infectious threat, the fight against tuberculosis, one of humankind’s oldest recorded infectious diseases, is also progressing. Pretomanid – only the second TB drug to hit the market in over two decades – received conditional marketing approval Monday from the European Commission as part of a new, three-drug treatment regimen […] Continue reading ->
Moderna, a frontrunner in the COVID-19 vaccine development race, today entered the final phase of testing required before pursuing regulatory approval, beginning the Phase III trial for their vaccine candidate mRNA-1273. The trial, titled COVE (Coronavirus Efficacy), will measure how well a 100 microgram dose of the vaccine can protect people against developing symptomatic COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
COVID-19 is on it’s way to becoming the deadliest infectious disease in the world this year, and could cause more deaths worldwide than the current deadliest infectious disease killer tuberculosis. Currently tuberculosis, one of humankind’s oldest known infectious diseases, takes the lives of some 1.8 million people per year. Global Deaths Due to Various Causes […] Continue reading ->