NAIROBI – Kenya is one of the leading African countries yet to ratify the African Medicines Agency Treaty (AMA) – but a senior official in the Ministry of Health has said that the move should come soon. According to Susan Mochache, the country’s Principal Secretary in the Ministries of Health (MoH), Kenya has already undergone […] Continue reading ->
“The future generations are not going to excuse this,” pleaded Kawaldip Sehmi, CEO of the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO). “They will be looking at us and will say, ‘What the hell were they doing procrastinating on their neighbors during a pandemic?” Sehmi was one of seven speakers from across Africa who convened at […] Continue reading ->
Almost one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence across the course of their lifetimes. And over the past 12 months, more than one in ten women suffered from physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, according to a new WHO-led report on gender-based violence, published just a day after International Women’s Day. Gender-based violence […] Continue reading ->
A two-day summit of the world’s top pharma and public health sector players to address COVID-19 vaccine supply chain and manufacturing bottlenecks ended on Tuesday with agreement that large vaccine manufacturing scale up potential exists – even in 2021 – but the route is complex and there are no easy fixes. And most immediately, there […] Continue reading ->
African governments, the private sector, and development partners need to invest more in health and health systems to intensify the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and any future disease outbreaks, according to health experts speaking at the African Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC) on Tuesday. The experts agreed that a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach is needed […] Continue reading ->
The structural barriers to a faster and more equitable COVID-19 vaccine roll-out go far beyond the issue of patents, declared two of the world’s leading vaccine researchers and pharma execs at a WHO event on Monday evening. Sarah Gilbert, developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and Özlem Türeci, chief medical officer of BioNTech, the developer of […] Continue reading ->
Innovation has, until recently been a male-dominated preserve, but a group of women pioneers speaking at the Africa Health Agenda International Conference on Monday told of how the right mindset and a desire to improve lives has helped change the landscape. Speaking during a virtual panel discussion on Women in Innovation: Providing leadership, creating solutions […] Continue reading ->
A senior official at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has cautioned EU member states to wait until the agency has reviewed the safety and efficacy data of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine before granting the vaccine emergency use authorization at national level, and beginning mass rollouts. Last week, the EMA formally began a rolling review of […] Continue reading ->
Less than half of Africa’s citizens (52%) – some 615 million people – have access to the healthcare they need, the continent’s quality of health services is generally poor and the family planning needs of half the continent’s women and girls are unmet. This is according to a report on Africa’s progress toward achieving universal […] Continue reading ->
The WHO-convened international investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV2 virus is too politically limited by China and lacks the mandate to yield fully independent conclusions about how the novel coronavirus emerged and infected humans, according to a group of prominent international scientists – who have called for a new, independent and “unrestricted” probe into […] Continue reading ->