Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, an explosion of information and misinformation burned across the Internet. Health experts and officials had a choice: To turn a blind eye to the fake news being shared on social networks or to take action themselves and use these portals to disseminate essential information rapidly. […] Continue reading ->
Additional COVID-19 vaccine boosters are not recommended for people at low to medium risk of the disease who have been vaccinated and boosted once, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE). SAGE recommends an additional booster six to 12 months after the last dose for “high priority” […] Continue reading ->
After major setbacks during the pandemic, TB diagnosis and treatment appears to have rebounded with the number of undiagnosed TB-infections estimated at less than three million people in 2022- the lowest ever. That’s according to preliminary data released by the Stop TB Partnership, on Friday, World TB Day. “In 2022 the gap between the estimated […] Continue reading ->
Raccoon dogs, lab leaks and Chinese secrecy have made for high drama as scientists who think they may have found the elusive “Animal X” that passed SARS-CoV2 were excluded from a data-sharing platform for “scooping” Chinese scientists. Nineteen scientists, including world-renowned figures such as Dr Michael Worobey and Dr Angela Rasmussen – have published a […] Continue reading ->
Three years after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the era of hourly headlines updating death and case counts has come to a merciful end. But the virus is still killing around 1,000 people worldwide every day, and it isn’t going anywhere. As of 7 March, WHO has confirmed over 750 […] Continue reading ->
The US and Australia lifted COVID-19 travel restrictions on Chinese travellers last Friday and Saturday respectively, effectively acknowledging that the world’s biggest pandemic outbreak is over. Until the weekend, Chinese citizens had to present a negative COVID-19 test or proof of recovery to enter either country. In late January, the Chinese government reported that 80% […] Continue reading ->
This week’s testimony by former CDC director Dr Robert Redfield to US Congress has reignited widespread speculation in the United States that the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in a Wuhan research laboratory rather than in animals. The scientific debate about the origins of the virus took off this week just before the three-year anniversary of […] Continue reading ->
As Russia’s war against Ukraine intensifies around Bakhmut, a new report estimates that the invading army has had between 200,000 to 250,000 casualties – dead and wounded – in the past year. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) calculates that the average rate of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine every month is “at […] Continue reading ->
No date has yet been set for the recently-elected Director General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Jean Kaseya to take over his new tasks, said acting director Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma on Thursday. But he promised that the transition period would be a smooth one, saying: “After the decision by […] Continue reading ->
A US intelligence chief has claimed that COVID-19 most likely originated in a laboratory in China, a claim that was promptly dismissed by the Chinese government. “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Christopher Wray, the head of […] Continue reading ->