The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to begin a major polio booster vaccination campaign in Gaza next week with the dispatch of over 1.2 million vaccines to the war-torn Palestinian enclave – against a backdrop of spiralling regional tensions.   WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned again on Wednesday that the presence of polio virus […] Continue reading ->
Updated: The World Health Organization confirmed Tuesday evening that it had evacuated 85 severely ill and wounded Gazans to the United Arab Emirates for advanced treatment via Israel’s Ramon airfield.  The complex operation occurred as tensions escalated in the region following the deaths of 12 children in a Golan Heights Druze community –  apparently from […] Continue reading ->
The Argentina-based biotech firm,  Sinergium Biotech, has agreed to share know-how on the production of an mRNA vaccine for Avian influenza (H5N1) with WHO’s  Tecnology Transfer Hub so that an affordable vaccine could rapidly be produced for developing countries, WHO said Monday. The agreement marks the first time that a vaccine developer has actually volunteered […] Continue reading ->
Côte d’Ivoire became the first country to roll out the new R21/Matrix-M vaccine with the first child vaccinated in Abidjan on Monday. The vaccine, co-developed by the University of Oxford and Serum Institute of India (SII), was granted prequalification status by the World Health Organization (WHO) in December last year. This follows the approval of […] Continue reading ->
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, cyberattacks, genetic engineering, and amateur-led biology experiments could all pose threats to a country, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) updated guidance on lab biosecurity. The guidance aims to help national regulatory bodies and other institutions “establish or strengthen frameworks for handling high-consequence pathogens”. It features a comprehensive set of […] Continue reading ->