The Brazilian government needs to enforce “serious social measures” to contain the virus before it overwhelms its health facilities, World Health Organization (WHO)  Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the body’s weekly COVID-19 briefing. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsanaro continues to downplay the pandemic despite the country reaching its highest death rate in the past week […] Continue reading ->
Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo, will be publicly vaccinated with the Oxford/AstraZeneca SARS-CoV2 vaccine on 2 March, signifying the start of the West African country’s vaccine rollout. On Wednesday, Ghana became the first country in the world to receive vaccines via the global vaccine access platform, COVAX, according to Health Policy Watch. The Ivory Coast is expected […] Continue reading ->
The United States is donating an additional US$2 billion to the COVAX facility over the next two years to facilitate the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, while the pharma company Novavax will provide a total of 1.1 billion doses of its vaccine to COVAX – a gesture that could increase […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization is set to deploy over 100 experts to Guinea – to respond to a widening circle of Ebola virus cases in a country that was also at the epicenter of the historic 2013-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, officials said at twin press events in Brazzaville and Geneva on Thursday.      […] Continue reading ->
The United Kingdom, Norway and UNICEF on Wednesday appealed to world leaders to give stronger backing to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ call in March 2020 for a “global cease-fire” in order to beat the COVID-19 pandemic and get vaccines to tens of millions of undocumented migrants and refugees, as well as people living in […] Continue reading ->
Cape Town – The first South African health workers will be vaccinated against SARS-CoV2 on Wednesday with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was recently shown to be unable to stop mild or moderate infection against the B.1351 (501Y.V2) variant dominant in South Africa. In a hastily assembled Plan B, […] Continue reading ->
The contribution COVID-19 vaccines can make to beating the pandemic will depend on the extent to which they are produced at scale, priced affordably, and deployed globally, says the first peer reviewed study on equitable access to vaccines, published in The Lancet on Friday.  The Lancet article comes in the wake of a joint appeal […] Continue reading ->
A World Health Organization expert group has recommended the use of the AstraZeneca two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for use in countries worldwide – and among groups including people over the age of 65.  The sweeping recommendation by WHO “Strategic Advisory Group of Experts” (SAGE) marks what WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan described as an “important milestone” […] Continue reading ->