Delhi – India’s chief drug regulator approved two COVID-19 vaccines for “restricted emergency use” in the country on Sunday, opening the doors for a mass vaccination campaign against COVID to begin in one of the world’s largest countries, and a lower middle-income country at that. However, some watchdog groups said that the review process leading […] Continue reading ->
Ibadan, Nigeria. Several Nigerian states were unable to carry out preventative yellow fever campaigns late last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving thousands of people at risk of developing the disease as the country now faces a new winter yellow fever outbreak, Health Policy Watch learned. In early November, Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control […] Continue reading ->
As European COVID-19 vaccine campaigns got underway with celebratory first jabs into the arms of citizens in half a dozen countries, some seasoned observers were still wondering if the pace of vaccine roll-outs will move fast enough to outpace the continuing high levels of infection and fatality – now being fuelled by a new mutant […] Continue reading ->
Jerusalem – The huge neon sign over the city’s football stadium flashed over the highway and into the night. “Jerusalem is vaccinating” – it proclaimed. Across from the stadium, in a giant Arena that in normal times hosts conferences and trade shows, a steady stream of older people – some in wheelchairs, moving with walkers […] Continue reading ->
In early January 2020, as our Health Policy Watch team returned to work just after the New Year’s break, our production editor who had returned from a visit to her mother in China, called me to say in a mildly worried tone: “Hi Elaine, there is a strange virus circulating in Wuhan. I thought you […] Continue reading ->
Just 2 weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a plea to countries to honor their donor pledges to support its COVAX vaccine procurement scheme to equitably distribute at least a portion of forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines to countries around the world. Without donor support, the globall vaccine procurement facility that over 180 countries have […] Continue reading ->
The redacted WHO report on Italy’s pandemic response, “An Unprecedented Challenge” contained a brief timeline of events in the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China, which a number of WHO officials sought to amend or suppress even before the entire report was recalled. In fact, the so-called “China box” on the outbreak’s early […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – A new antiretroviral drug was supposed to be a game-changer for South Africa, which has one of the largest HIV-positive populations in the world. The drug, dolutegravir, was cheap, had few side effects, and – most importantly – it suppressed the virus quickly. But after a few months on the treatment, many […] Continue reading ->
Cape Town – As South Africa records over 930,000 COVID-19 cases and its scientists race to understand whether a new variant is driving the country’s second wave of infections, countries across the African continent are reporting an increase in cases. But there is widespread anecdotal evidence that many African countries are massively under-reporting their COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on Monday that it would recommend conditional marketing authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine – positioning Europe to finally begin rolling out vaccines across the continent – albeit after the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel have already moved into high gear vaccine campaigns. Mass vaccinations were […] Continue reading ->