AstraZeneca on Tuesday night suspended the Phase 3 trial of their experimental COVID-19 vaccine in order to investigate a a suspected severe adverse reaction in a volunteer reported in the United Kingdom. The trial suspension follows just on the heels of AstraZeneca’s chief executive officer’s pledge to seek regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine only […] Continue reading ->
The chief executive officers of nine biopharmaceutical companies at the forefront of the COVID-19 vaccine development race have signed a pledge to fully test the safety and efficacy of an investigational vaccine before rolling it out for mass use. The top executives of AstraZeneca, BioNTech, GlaxoKlineSmith, Johnson&Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, Sanofi, and Pfizer signed the […] Continue reading ->
Nairobi, Kenya – While banker Peter Karagu is one of the over 35,000 people who have contracted COVID-19 disease in Kenya over the past 6 months, he cannot in any way be described as an ordinary victim of the respiratory illness. Throughout his 22 days confined at an isolation ward at Kenyatta University Teaching Research […] Continue reading ->
Countries would be better off waiting until Phase 3 clinical trials, which test the safety and efficacy of an experimental vaccine in tens of thousands of people, are completed before rolling out the vaccine for wider use, World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Monday. Although some countries, including China, Russia and the […] Continue reading ->
A White House spokesperson on Tuesday said that the United States would not be joining the COVAX Facility, an initiative led by the World Health Organization and its partners to pool global demand for a COVID-19 vaccine, and ensure its equitable distribution. “The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we […] Continue reading ->
Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna Therapeutics since 2015, which has become one of the front-runners in the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, is in fact an oncologist, not a virologist by training. And so it’s perhaps no accident that the innovative “messenger RNA” (mRNA) technology upon which the company’s vaccine candidate […] Continue reading ->
The European Commission has announced that it will join the new WHO-sponsored COVID-19 vaccine facility (COVAX) with a € 400 million commitment – inching the visionary global fund much closer to reality. If the new COVAX facility becomes a reality, it would set a historic precedent of multilateral cooperation, not only on the pandemic, but […] Continue reading ->
Billions of people around the world have suffered from new or increased mental health stress as a result of COVID-19, which makes it time to redouble investments in one of the most neglected areas of public health. This was the main message of a joint call by the World Health Organization, together with a number […] Continue reading ->
Part of a series of stories about how the coronavirus lockdowns and relaxations are playing out in different parts of Africa. For more on this, see our stories on South Africa and Ibadan, Nigeria. Kampala, Uganda – As Uganda’s coronavirus cases double in only two weeks, the Ministry of Health is considering a second lockdown […] Continue reading ->
There is insufficient evidence that treating people hospitalized for COVID-19 with blood plasma from recovered patients is safe and effective – and more randomized clinical trials are thus needed, warned the World Health Organization on Monday. Evidence overall remains “inconclusive,” said WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan at a WHO press conference on Monday. She spoke […] Continue reading ->