WHO needs to focus more work on limiting gender-based violence, increase its programmatic emphasis on healthy diets and lifestyles, and contribute to renewed momentum on climate action, said WHO member states at Friday’s Executive Board session. The member states were reviewing the WHO Director General’s report on “social determinants of health” – in light of […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer/BioNTech will join the WHO-co-sponsored COVAX vaccine facility, providing up to 40 million vaccines at cost to the Facility for use in low-income countries around the world – in what signals a breakthrough for the facility that only a week ago appeared to be teetering on the verse of irrelevance – as more low- and […] Continue reading ->
Ten African countries, supported by China, have appealed to the World Health Organization (WHO) to support increased local production of medicines, vaccines and other health products – to improve their access and drive down prices, according to a draft resolution presented to WHO’s Executive Board Friday. Ethiopia, supported by nine other African countries – eSwatini, […] Continue reading ->
Reform and diversification of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) funding model is vital if the global health body is to avoid repeating the consequences of the US’s withdrawal in April 2020, member states have said during WHO’s Executive Board meetings. The global COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the “open secret” within the field of global health […] Continue reading ->
Five people have died in a major fire at the Serum Institute’s manufacturing facility, charged with producing India’s supply of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine –  just days after the country’s national vaccine campaign got underway. Serum Institute Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla was quick to say that the fire at its main complex in Pune, would not […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – Scientists are concerned that antibodies that could detect SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa’s first wave will be less effective against a virus variant that first emerged here and is known as 501Y.V2.  What’s worse, they still don’t know if brand new COVID-19 vaccines will work against the variant – which is deemed to […] Continue reading ->
The demands of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic are draining resources from global health research and development (R&D) programs and disrupting clinical trials and other work, presenting a potential post-pandemic scenario of a world more vulnerable to a host of infectious threats. That’s what our organization, the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), learned after conducting extensive, […] Continue reading ->
In a brief, but historic speech Thursday morning before WHO’s Executive Board, President Joe Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor, Dr Anthony Fauci, reversed course on four years erratic and often hostile approaches to the World Health Organization and global health – which had alienated and bewildered friends and allies worldwide. .  As one of the first […] Continue reading ->
Almost twenty years after a landmark WHO treaty was adopted to curb tobacco consumption, a new “pandemic treaty” could become a key tool to garner stronger political commitment from member states to better prevent, prepare and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, WHO’s Director General said on Wednesday..  The recommendation, initially proposed by the European Council’s […] Continue reading ->