The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator is going to focus on vaccinating high-risk populations, introducing new treatments, boosting testing and securing sustained access to COVID-19 tools in the next six months. ACT-A announced its new transition plan at a meeting on Friday as the world moves to long-term COVID-19 control.   “Recognizing the evolving nature […] Continue reading ->
China administered the world’s first oral aerosol COVID-19 vaccine boosters in Shanghai on Wednesday, as new lockdown measures were imposed on Wuhan, the supposed birthplace of the pandemic. Chinese vaccine manufacturer CanSino Biologics said in a media statement that the inclusion of its vaccine in Shanghai’s booster vaccination program marked “the start of the rollout […] Continue reading ->
Midway through last year, the head of the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, Strive Masiyiwa, angrily accused the global COVID-19 vaccine acquisition platform, COVAX, of misleading African countries about its ability to procure vaccines for them. Masiyiwa’s bitter remarks came after months of Africans watching Europeans and North Americans being vaccinated against COVID-19 while no […] Continue reading ->
Measles outbreaks are escalating in large parts of the world thanks to “backsliding” in national immunisation programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunization warned on Tuesday. “There were 25 million children un- or under-vaccinated in 2021,” said Dr Kate O’Brien, WHO’s director of immunization, […] Continue reading ->
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has signed a voluntary licence agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical company, Shionogi, to enable generic companies to produce its COVID-19 antiviral treatment pill candidate, provided it gets regulatory approval. The pill, ensitrelvir fumaric acid, has already shown efficacy in a phase 2/ 3 trial involving 1,821 COVID-19 patients from Japan, South […] Continue reading ->
Practices implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as flexible working arrangements and teleworking, could help to reduce work-related mental health challenges, according to a first-ever set of Guidelines on Mental Health at Work released Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO). The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a 25% increase in what was already a high percentage […] Continue reading ->