Right after the pomp and ceremony of the heavily guarded inauguration of new US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris is over, a deadly serious new war on COVID-19 is due to get underway –  including rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of the new Administration’s seven point COVID pandemic plan.  That […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 vaccine access platform, COVAX, is geared up to deliver vaccines to “far more” than 20% of member states’ populations beyond 2021, Dr Kate O’Brien, the body’s director of vaccines, told its Executive Board meeting on Tuesday. She was responding to concerns and criticisms expressed by member states at the […] Continue reading ->
The world is “on the brink of a catastrophe and moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with the lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries,” declared WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his harshest rebuke to date of both countries and the pharma industry for failing […] Continue reading ->
“Escalating bilateral deals” between pharmaceutical companies and World Health Organization (WHO) member states have complicated the global body’s vaccine delivery platform, the COVAX Facility, a number of top WHO officials told the WHO’s Executive Board yesterday in the opening day of the  EB’s 148th session, which focused largely on the pandemic. “Countries with bilateral deals […] Continue reading ->
Deliveries of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to all European Union (EU) states will be reduced for an undisclosed period starting from next week, Norway’s National Institute of Public Health has said. The sudden change to delivery schedules, Pfizer announced on Friday, is due to a reorganization of the company’s production capacity. It did not say how […] Continue reading ->
DELHI, INDIA – In the last week of December 2020, Chanda Devi heard a truck roll into her neighborhood in North Bhopal, Central India. Residents were called outside by a voice, booming through loudspeakers. They were eligible to collect Rs 750 (about US$10) to receive a “corona vaccine”. The people said that they were recruiters, […] Continue reading ->
NEW YORK/ GENEVA. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and two leading international health and humanitarian civil society organizations announced on Tuesday the establishment of a global Ebola vaccine stockpile to ensure rapid response to future outbreaks. Establishment of the stockpile was led by the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision, which also includes the […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has “outsourced” its role in vaccine access and sidelined member states by leaving the running of the COVAX vaccine procurement facility to GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance and CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiative), Third World Network’s Sangeeta Shashikant told a civil society forum on Tuesday. “Disparity in access is the […] Continue reading ->
A US$40 million research consortium has been created to repurpose existing medicines for hepatitis, tuberculosis and malaria into long-acting treatments that can benefit low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where people often have trouble accessing medicine over and over again, Unitaid experts told Health Policy Watch. The consortium on Tuesday launched the new Centre of Excellence […] Continue reading ->