Cape Town, South Africa – The US government’s recent purchase of almost the entire available stock of Gilead’s remdesivir – a medicine shown to help speed up the recovery of people who are moderately sick with COVID-19 – has raised fears about whether poorer countries will also be left in the dust if a vaccine […] Continue reading ->
A growing bloc of aerosol scientists, epidemiologists, and infectious disease experts are urging the World Health Organization to acknowledge that particles containing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can remain suspended in the air for hours and be inhaled, potentially representing another route of transmission. Some 239 scientists from around the world urged the WHO […] Continue reading ->
Access to life-saving dexamethasone will be expanded to some 4.5 million COVID-19 patients in low- and middle-income countries through an advance bulk purchase of the drug in bulk, UNITAID has said. The move is the first concrete step by a global health agency under the umbrella of the WHO ACT accelerator partnership to boost access […] Continue reading ->
A landmark meeting hosted next week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) will bring together major powers to debate the key actions for a climate-friendly COVID-19 recovery in an online forum open to public viewing. The IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit will be live-streamed July 9th, and bring together the world’s largest economies and developing […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Shows Promising Early Results; Induces Immune Response In Healthy Volunteers
A COVID-19 vaccine candidate under development by pharma giant Pfizer and biotech firm BioNTech showed promise in interim results released Wednesday. The vaccine candidate, BNT162b1, was able to induce the formation of antibodies that neutralized SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in all participants who received doses between 10ug to 30ug, according to a report […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization will be sending a mission to China on 6 July to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus subtly announced at a Monday press briefing. The mission aims to fulfill decisions made in a unanimously passed World Health Assembly resolution in late […] Continue reading ->
A six-vial five-day course of remdesivir – a promising COVID-19 treatment – will be priced at US $2340, or $390 per vial for developed countries, Gilead Sciences Chief Executive Officer Daniel O’Day wrote in an open letter on Monday. “Earlier hospital discharge [thanks to treatment by remdesivir] would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 […] Continue reading ->
Ibadan, Nigeria – Twenty-two year-old Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, freshly admitted to university, had retreated to study in a church in the city of Benin, Nigeria during lockdown, when she was raped and killed on May 30. The following day, 18-year-old Barakat Bello was reportedly raped and killed in Oyo state. 29-year-old Azeezat Shomuyiwa and 21-year-old […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization aims to raise a whopping US $31.3 billion to fund the ambitious goals of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator; a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to develop and deploy diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines to control the virus. But so far, only $US 3.4 billion has been pledged towards the initial […] Continue reading ->
A slew of new and repurposed public health technology has been rapidly developed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the whirlwind of contact tracing apps, artificial intelligence, and location tracking being used for public health surveillance, old ethical dilemmas have resurfaced around who is actually benefiting from these technologies. “The question remains; […] Continue reading ->