A $200 million dollar investment – the largest financial commitment to addressing childhood cancer ever – has been announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and US-based St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines will provide an uninterrupted supply of quality-assured cancer medicines to low- and middle-income countries. […] Continue reading ->
Agricultural plastics pose large and growing threat to soils, food safety and human health – and need to be better managed as well as replaced with more sustainable alternatives, as well as more recycling and reuse of plastics consumed. These are the findings of a new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, “Assessment […] Continue reading ->
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has set up a new global initiative to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination efforts, called the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access (Global VAX), the agency announced on Monday Global Vax’s aim according to USAID, is to “get COVID-19 shots into arms and enhance international coordination to identify and rapidly overcome […] Continue reading ->
Following the detection of the newest WHO COVID-19 variant of concern, Omicron, in Canada and Brazil, and most recently, the US, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has urged countries to “redouble their surveillance efforts in the region, warning that it is likely that the new variant will likely be circulating in other parts of […] Continue reading ->
The first non-exclusive license for a COVID-19 health tool – a serological antibody test that checks for the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies – has been finalised by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). The license, announced on Tuesday in partnership with the Spanish National Research […] Continue reading ->
Two parents who lost their children in car crashes urged governments to adopt better road safety policies on the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on Monday. South African Zoleka Mandela’s daughter died in a Johannesburg crash on her 13th birthday, while Australian Peter Frazer’s 23-year-old daughter was killed by a truck on […] Continue reading ->
People living with HIV in England and Wales may be eligible for injectable antiretroviral treatment every two months, rather than daily pills. Two injectable drugs, cabotegravir and rilpivirine, were recommended for use by the UK National Institute for Health and Care (NICE) on Thursday after trials proved they work as effectively as daily tablets, according […] Continue reading ->
Moderna has fired back against claims made by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) that its scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD) helped to invent the crucial component of the pharma company’s COVID-19 vaccine, stating that the mRNA sequence was “selected exclusively” by Moderna scientists. “We do not agree that […] Continue reading ->
Following World Health Organization approval last week, interim data from a phase 3 trial of BBV152, a COVID-19 vaccine developed in India, reports 77.8% efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19. The study, published in The Lancet, indicated that BBV152 induced a robust antibody response, with the majority of adverse events, including headache, fatigue, fever, and pain at […] Continue reading ->
A US organisation that promotes transparency in health policy decisions, Right to Know, has asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to remove 10 of the 26 candidates it had recently named to a new Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) – due to alleged conflicts of interest – and replace them […] Continue reading ->