Although some experts predict that the past weekend’s celebrations of China’s lunar new year will hasten the spread of COVID-19 to rural parts of the country, one of the country’s top scientists has disputed this. Wu Zunyou, China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief epidemiologist, downplayed the risk on the Chinese social media platform, […] Continue reading ->
Across disciplines and sectors, experts say it will take treating health care as ‘ecosystems’ and a greater focus on access and equity to achieve solutions to critical health challenges of tomorrow and beyond. DAVOS, Switzerland – In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, huge inequities in access to health care have been exposed that demand […] Continue reading ->
Proposed amendments to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Health Regulations (IHR) focus on improving accountability and compliance, according to Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Speaking at the start of last week’s meeting of the IHR review committee, Tedros said that he expected a report from the committee, which is considering the amendments, by […] Continue reading ->
Hybrid immunity from a combination of being vaccinated and previously infected with COVID-19 offers better protection against hospitalisation and severe infection than immunity simply from a previous infection, according to a new study in The Lancet. People with hybrid immunity were 97.4% less likely to be hospitalised or suffer severe infection at 12 months, whereas those […] Continue reading ->
The World Economic Forum (WEF) will partner with Wellcome Trust to collect research-based data on how climate change is affecting health.  Making the announcement, WEF’s head of health Shyam Bishen said that while several organisations were working on data collection, most data is fragmented with different organisations.  “We want to ensure that we have a […] Continue reading ->
DAVOS, Switzerland  – The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced plans to set up a new TB Vaccine Accelerator Council to increase momentum for the development of a vaccine to combat the world’s most deadly infectious disease. Speaking at a high-level panel at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting where the plan was launched, WHO […] Continue reading ->
The existing international framework for sharing pathogens is ‘transactional’ and undermines global health security, according to research commissioned by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA). Produced by legal consultancy Covington, the research was developed partly from interviews with 82 public health experts. There were drawn from the pharmaceutical companies (44% of respondents), […] Continue reading ->