This past few weeks has seen a flurry of open letters from academics, politicians and NGOs dispatched to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Joe Biden and other heads of state, urging their governments to support a proposal to the World Trade Organization to for a proposed “waiver” suspending intellectual property (IP) rights, and […] Continue reading ->
India has greenlighted Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use following a severe shortage of vaccines against the coronavirus and a massive spike in cases, and is now poised to become one of the world’s largest manufacturing hubs for the vaccine with 50 million doses produced by July.  India’s aproval of a third COVID vaccine […] Continue reading ->
Previous infection with SARS-CoV2 induces effective immunity against future infections by 84% – but reinfection rate is still 16%, found a study published in The Lancet on Friday. This suggests that infection-induced immunity is similar to, or greater than, vaccine-associated immunity, said the authors.  The SARS-CoV2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation (SIREN) study involved 25,661 health […] Continue reading ->
The WHO and its member states must take swift action to enable a transparent, independent and rigorous investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, said two dozen international scientists in their second open letter.  The letter – released on Wednesday by 24 scientists and researchers across Europe, the United States, and Japan – comes […] Continue reading ->
The latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India has delayed vaccine delivery to African countries and is expected to adversely affect vaccine roll-out programs and the continent’s response efforts until the third quarter of the year. The Indian government’s decision to suspend exports of the vaccines from the Serum Institute of India (SII) to […] Continue reading ->