China’s zero-COVID approach was no longer sustainable in the face of the more infectious but less lethal Omicron, WHO Secretary-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing on Tuesday. This follows the six-week lockdown of 25 million residents of the Chinese city of Shanghai and restrictions on the movement of people in Beijing, with […] Continue reading ->
Policies initiated to control the COVID-19 pandemic increased the difficulties for people who use drugs when seeking health treatment, leading drug experts to conclude that treatment programmes need to be integrated into community care. Ruth Dreifuss, former President of Switzerland and founding member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, noted that people who use […] Continue reading ->
A third shot of the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine boosted vaccine effectiveness against infection, which had been diminished five to six months after the second vaccine dose, according to a study of over 12,000 healthcare workers released this week by Nature. The study was conducted in Israel by Sheba Medical Center and involved 12,413 health workers […] Continue reading ->
Excess deaths during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic are almost triple officially-reported deaths – around 14.9 million deaths rather than the 5.4 million currently reported, according to new figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO). These much-delayed excess death statistics were finally released on Thursday after being contested by India, […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the level of worldwide investment in respiratory care and now that cases are on the decline, countries need to develop long-term strategies to use oxygen, according to health experts. “Severe pneumonia, sepsis, trauma complications – there are many patients that would benefit from oxygen,” explained Janet Diaz, a team lead […] Continue reading ->
Protecting indigenous communities in Canada and refugees in central and Eastern Europe from COVID-19 requires community-based approaches that could be applied in other healthcare crises. This emerged from field actors who shared their experiences and lessons at the Geneva Health Forum on Tuesday. In Canada’s Manitoba province, indigenous communities were mistrustful of mass COVID-19 vaccinations, […] Continue reading ->
The European Region and COVID-19 are in a “kind of ceasefire,” according to World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge. It is now up to the region’s 53 member states to take advantage of this window to prepare for the next fight, he said. “It is quiet and we have to […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic blindsided most of the world as it swept from China across the world at an unprecedent pace, infecting, ultimately killing millions of people. But more than two years later, there are some lessons that can be learned, said Tatiana Valovaya, director-general of the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday evening. At the […] Continue reading ->
Individuals who suffer from severe psychiatric disorders were at least twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than others who caught the virus, at least in the first year of the pandemic when the most deadly SARS-COV2 variants, including Delta, were predominant. That is the key finding in a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry, […] Continue reading ->
In DR Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak, the two people with confirmed cases are dead and response is focusing on identifying and vaccinating contacts – because of insufficient doses to conduct a mass vaccination campaign in the outbreak area. Meanwhile, public health officials are trying to reboot Africa’s mainstream immunization programmes, which saw setbacks during the […] Continue reading ->