As the explosive impact of COVID-19 ripples globally, there’s a clear plea from many regions and countries: stay home and help “flatten the curve” of infection. People from China to Italy have seen the consequences of the virus spreading too quickly with hospitals overwhelmed and doctors forced to make heartbreaking decisions about who lives and […] Continue reading ->
US Food & Drug Administration authorization of a rapid COVID-19 test on the GeneXpert platform, one of the most widely-used TB diagnostic tools in the world, could be the first crack in the doorway to wider testing capacity in low- and middle-income countries, leading TB advocates told Health Policy Watch. There are some 23,000 GeneXpert […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization announced on Wednesday a global “SOLIDARITY Trial” to generate a large, robust study comparing potential treatments for COVID-19. Currently there are 522 trials listed on WHO’s Clinical Trial registry under “COVID-19.” “Multiple small trials with different methodologies may not give us the clear, strong evidence we need about which treatments help to […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization issued an urgent call for countries worldwide to dramatically scale up COVID-19 testing, followed by stricter isolation of confirmed cases and contact tracing – saying that those steps are critical to getting the accelerating pandemic under control. But there was far less clarity from WHO about the use of travel restrictions. […] Continue reading ->
As the world surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 infections, the United Nations announced on Friday that a critical round of climate negotiations among member states in Bonn, Germany will be postponed, while some of the sessions scheduled from 6 March to the end of April would be put on a virtual footing. Africa Climate Week, a parallel […] Continue reading ->
As the COVID-19 continued its march across the planet, shortages of some key drug ingredients were beginning to be felt in some markets, and iconic events such as the World Bank’s annual spring meeting were to be moved to a virtual platform. In Geneva, parallel sessions and side events involving the ongoing annual meetings of […] Continue reading ->
For the second day in a row, new COVID-19 cases outside of China exceeded those inside the country on Thursday. According to the latest data Thusday evening, there were now 4,053 cases in 44 countries outside of mainland China, and at least 54 deaths. The biggest hotspots remained Italy, Iran and Korea, but shifting numbers […] Continue reading ->
Experts were closely watching the development of Japan’s COVID-19 outbreak for signs of whether the virus might escape further out of control, moving closer to the tipping point of a pandemic – the worldwide spread of a new disease. Meanwhile, a new study in The Lancet found that in Africa, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa […] Continue reading ->
Amidst reports of an even tougher crackdown in China, including door to door visits by Wuhan public health authorities to identify people infected with the novel COVID-19 coronavirus and place them in mass quarantine facilities, WHO’s Emergencies Head Mike Ryan defended the tough government measures at a press briefing on Tuesday. “Door to door surveillance, […] Continue reading ->
The International Health Regulations are in need of reform, experts say – to create a more nuanced system of alerting the public about international health emergencies that goes beyond the existing yes-no decision, and to improve compliance to IHR laws by member states during such outbreaks. A high level panel of experts reviewed key concerns […] Continue reading ->