Amid soaring COVID-19 cases in the UK, the government is prioritising giving third booster shots to people as it banks on the country’s high COVID-19 vaccination rate being able to prevent severe illness and death. Over the past week, COVID-19 cases in the UK increased by almost 18% – with 52,000 new cases confirmed on Thursday […] Continue reading ->
Western stockpiles of surplus COVID-19 vaccines are predicted to reach 600 million doses by the end of the year and millions might expire – yet the global vaccine facility COVAX is still short of 500 million doses to vaccinate 40% of the population by December. This is according to former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, […] Continue reading ->
South Africa has decided not to grant approval to Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine as there is a risk that it might make vaccinated men more vulnerable to HIV infection, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) announced on Monday. SAPHRA’s caution stems from fact that Sputnik uses an Adenovirus Type 5 (Ad5) vector […] Continue reading ->
Despite what some observes called an encouraging “change of tone”, this week’s round of World Trade Organization (WTO) debates over a proposed waiver on IP restrictions for COVID vaccines, treatments and other health products have concluded with no signs of substantive progress. Meanwhile, Médecins Sans Frontières lashed out again at the European Union on Friday, […] Continue reading ->
Some 70 cases of Zika virus were identified in India’s Kerala State over the course of July – what represents the first cases to be reported in the southern Indian state, said WHO on Thursday. WHO provided no explanation as to why the report was first published months after the outbreak was initially identified. Subsequently, […] Continue reading ->
Deaths from tuberculosis increased for the first time in a decade in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2021 Global TB report. The diversion of health resources to address COVID-19 led to fewer TB diagnoses as well as a drop in treatment last year. This is likely to […] Continue reading ->
Africa is estimated to have seven times more COVID-19 cases and three times as many deaths as officially reported, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa region. This means that the continent could have around 59 million cases and 634,500 deaths. “We’re using a model to estimate the degree of under-estimation. Our analysis indicates […] Continue reading ->
The Indian government’s Subject Expert Committee (SEC) has recommended the use of the country’s home-grown COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, for children from the age of two. This is the first vaccine in the world to be approved for such young children. Pfizer’s vaccine was recently approved for children from the age of 12 in the US. […] Continue reading ->
The most systematic study to date of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on mental health suggests that it has caused an additional 53 million cases of major depressive disorder, 76 million cases of anxiety across 204 countries in 2020 alone, according to a new Lancet study. The study, published just ahead of World Mental Health Day, […] Continue reading ->
Brazil’s official death toll from COVID-19 reached 600,000 late Friday, the second-highest in the world after the US – and a leading epidemiologist blames the Bolsonaro administration for deliberately spreading the virus to achieve “herd immunity”. “Brazil’s federal government put in place a deliberate policy of exposing the population to the pandemic,” according to Cesar […] Continue reading ->