Mayors and other municipal officials should develop “urban heat maps” to identify and protect those most vulnerable to high temperatures, World Health Organization (WHO) official Maria Neira urged on Wednesday. Many people in urban areas stifling under heat waves cannot afford cooling systems while conditions for outdoor workers not protected by legislation have become dangerous, […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new standing recommendations for COVID-19 for member states, now that the virus outbreak is no longer classified as a pandemic. The recommendations are seven-fold, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus told a media briefing on Wednesday. “First, all countries should update their national COVID-19 programmes using the WHO […] Continue reading ->
Merely months after securing US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine, British pharma giant GSK has taken Pfizer to court for patent violations.  GSK filed the lawsuit in a US federal court in Delaware on Wednesday alleging that Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, Abrysvo, violates four patents surrounding the antigen […] Continue reading ->
Older adults vaccinated with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine were 15% less likely to be infected with COVID-19 than those vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech’s, according to a peer-reviewed study, published in JAMA Network on Wednesday. The study was based on observational data from 6.3 million adults, almost 60% women and 86.5% White, with an average age of 76 […] Continue reading ->
The cases of drug-resistant gonorrhoea, a sexually transmitted disease, are on the rise in many parts of the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.  The agency added that it considers Neisseria gonorrhoea a “priority microorganism” to be monitored for antimicrobial resistance.  The new WHO guidance on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) requires countries to […] Continue reading ->
Thirty-seven countries have received grants worth $338 million from the Pandemic Fund to boost their resilience to pandemics in the first round of the fund’s disbursements. Three disbursements involve multi-country grants: to 12 Caribbean countries to strengthen their early warning surveillance, build laboratory systems and workforce development; to seven Latin American countries to engage communities […] Continue reading ->