New York City. The pandemic has been exacerbated by recent hurricanes in Central America, as a result of outbreaks in overcrowded emergency shelters, as well as travel during the American Thanksgiving season, health leaders said at a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) press conference. Last week, saw an increase of 1.5 million cases reported in […] Continue reading ->
Far greater investment in global pandemic response is required to ensure that core public health initiatives, like AIDS prevention and treatment aren’t thrown off course by future pandemics, while roll-out of a cheap and accessible “People’s Vaccine” would help get other core public health programmes quickly back on track, UNAIDS has said. In a message […] Continue reading ->
South Africa is campaigning for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waiver intellectual property rights on all products related to COVID-19 for the duration of the pandemic. Mustaqeem De Gama, Counsellor at the South African Permanent Mission in Geneva, is leading the campaign. Kerry Cullinan and Elaine Fletcher spoke to him about the reasons why […] Continue reading ->
Thirteen African countries and an international network of research institutions have joined forces to launch a multi-country clinical trial of COVID-19 drug treatments in Africa for people who are mild to moderately ill. The new ANTICOV trial, led by the Geneva-based Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) aims to respond to the urgent need to […] Continue reading ->
AstraZeneca, the pharma firm developing a COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with researchers at Oxford University, announced that its Phase 3 clinical trials had resulted in a 90% efficacy rate for one dosing regime, in interim results released on Monday. The AstraZeneca breakthrough is significant because the vaccine, based on a known vaccine delivery technology, is […] Continue reading ->
The tobacco industry has been exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting health sector resource shortages to gain a stronger foothold in the policy corridors of many national governments – making huge donations of PPE and other desperately needed goods, new research has shown. The Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2020, released by STOP (Stopping Tobacco […] Continue reading ->
COVID-19 and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are combining as a “syndemic” that reinforce each other and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities in every country during the pandemic period, said experts at a NCD Alliance panel on Thursday.  However, primary health care workers, particularly nurses, who are the backbone of routine NCD responses have been particularly […] Continue reading ->
  Nearly 100 World Trade Organization member countries and entities could potentially swing behind a proposal by India and South Africa to enact a wide-ranging waiver of complex World Trade Organization requirements on the use of patented products, trade secrets and copyrights on health products during the pandemic, asserted the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access […] Continue reading ->