Three years after the launch of its COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative, the World Health Organization (WHO) has secured its first COVID-19 vaccine license from a private pharmaceutical company, the UN health body announced on Tuesday. The agreement with Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp., a private vaccine manufacturer based in Taiwan, is a welcome but underwhelming […] Continue reading ->
The South African High Court has ordered the country’s health department to hand copies of all its COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts, negotiations and agreements to a non-governmental organisation, Health Justice Initiative (HJI). The Pretoria High Court ruling on Thursday comes in response to a court application by HJI for access to the contracts, arguing that […] Continue reading ->
Dr Hans Kluge, regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Europe,  has warned member countries to maintain their COVID-19 infrastructure and genomic surveillance amid a “gradual increase in cases, including hospitalizations, in some European countries”.  “COVID has not gone away. While its impact currently isn’t as severe as earlier, millions, especially the most […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new standing recommendations for COVID-19 for member states, now that the virus outbreak is no longer classified as a pandemic. The recommendations are seven-fold, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus told a media briefing on Wednesday. “First, all countries should update their national COVID-19 programmes using the WHO […] Continue reading ->
Older adults vaccinated with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine were 15% less likely to be infected with COVID-19 than those vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech’s, according to a peer-reviewed study, published in JAMA Network on Wednesday. The study was based on observational data from 6.3 million adults, almost 60% women and 86.5% White, with an average age of 76 […] Continue reading ->
A single healthcare worker infected with COVID-19 cost the Kenyan economy over $33,000 – around 18 times the country’s per capita GDP. This is according to a new report on the economic cost of COVID-19 infections among healthcare workers in Eswatini, Colombia, Kenya and South Africa (the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape) during the […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated patients’ difficulties in accessing medication for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), but there is a range of measures countries can take to mitigate this – and a pandemic accord could address some of the structural weaknesses. COVID-19 had a disproportionate and far-reaching impact on people living with NCDs. Not only were they more […] Continue reading ->
Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the popular assumption was that people displaying severe symptons were also the most contagious. But new data from a controversial Imperial College London study published on Tuesday found the two participants that were the biggest “superspreaders” of the virus both displayed only minor symptoms.  “How symptomatic a person […] Continue reading ->
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announced sublicensing agreements with seven manufacturers to produce and distribute generic versions of Japanese pharmaceutical company Shinogi’s COVID-19 antiviral treatment in 117 low- and middle-income countries.  Ensitrelvir is an oral antiviral currently only approved in Japan under the country’s emergency regulatory approval system. The drug is being evaluated under a […] Continue reading ->