In a milestone deal for Africa, Pfizer/BioNTech announced Wednesday that it would partner with the Cape Town-based pharma firm Biovac to produce over 100 million doses annually of it’s cutting edge mRNA vaccine – for distribution within the African Union.   The deal was quickly hailed as a major breakthrough on a continent that is desperately […] Continue reading ->
As an official partner of the COVAX Facility, UNICEF is responsible for procurement, logistics and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. PRITI PATNAIK spoke with Gian Gandhi, who coordinates COVAX operations for UNICEF, to get a sense of the challenges faced by the organization during the pandemic in the context of production shortages and realities at the […] Continue reading ->
KHARTOUM – A telemedicine programme is helping Sudanese medical students to both treat community members with mild COVID-19 in their homes and educate their communities about the pandemic. Many medical students, who have been sitting at home since medical schools were closed last year due to the pandemic, joined the community medical response teams (CMRT) […] Continue reading ->
Africa experienced a 43% week-on-week increase in COVID-19 deaths, as the Delta variant accelerated infections for the eighth week in a row, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported at its weekly Africa press briefing. Hospital admissions increase rapidly and countries face shortages in oxygen and intensive care beds, as the Africa hit six million cumulative […] Continue reading ->
Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn pushed back hard Thursday against voices calling for a waiver on the intellectual property of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines in a high-profile visit to Geneva. His trip coincided with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s farewell visit to the United States, including a summit with US President Joe Biden, where protestors chanted […] Continue reading ->
People living with HIV face a significant risk of severe COVID-19 and should be prioritised in national vaccination programmes, according to research presented on Thursday ahead of  the International AIDS Society’s (IAS) HIV Science conference which starts on Saturday. The World Health Organization (WHO) research looked at the data of 15,500 HIV positive people from […] Continue reading ->