Category: Development

Although more than 700 million vaccine doses have been administered globally, richer countries have received more than 87 per cent, and low-income countries just 0.2 per cent.  On average in high-income countries 1 in 4 people has received a #COVID19 vaccine. In low-income countries it’s 1 in 500+. Scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy. This is… Read More

The first delivery of lifesaving jabs arrived in Ghana on 24 February. Announcing the news on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that more than 38 million doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Serum Institute of India-produced shots (one of the AstraZeneca vaccines known as COVISHIELD) have been transported globally so far. AstraZenica jabs have ‘saved millions’ The development comes… Read More

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the first year of the pandemic saw more than 111,000 travel restrictions and border closures around the world at their peak in December.   These measures “have thwarted many people’s ability to pursue migration as a tool to escape conflict, economic collapse, environmental disaster and other crises”, IOM maintained.  In mid-July, nearly three million people were stranded, sometimes without access to consular assistance, nor the means… Read More

The opinion by the subcommittee of WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) follows a review of latest information from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the United Kingdom’s regulatory body MHRA, and other countries.  The EMA concluded that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine, while the… Read More

“While we have all undoubtedly been impacted by the pandemic, the poorest and most marginalized have been hit hardest – both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, speaking in Geneva on Tuesday.  It’s #WorldHealthDay! For many people, health is the foundation to do the things in life they love;… Read More

More than 181 Member States voiced support for the text entitled “The Political Declaration on Equitable Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccines”, which was unveiled at an informal meeting of the Assembly on Friday. “We strongly believe that ‘no one can be safe, until everyone is safe’, and that equitable and affordable access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines must be… Read More

Dr Rogério  Pinto de Sá Gaspar, Director for Regulation and Prequalification, was responding to a journalist’s question regarding links between the vaccine and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, a rare blood clotting syndrome.  The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Tuesday denied that it had established any link, following reports that one of its experts stated there was a connection.   Expert… Read More

“At this stage, we would not like to see vaccination passports as a requirement for entry or exit because we are not sure at this stage that the vaccine prevents transmissions,” said WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris, just ahead of World Health Day on 7 April 2021. Supply and demand Dr. Harris added that vaccine passports may not be an… Read More

Highlighting the inequalities and injustices that have been apparent throughout the pandemic, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message for the day to be marked on Wednesday, that the vast majority of vaccine doses administered so far, have been confined to “a few wealthy countries” or those producing the shots cleared for distribution. “Within countries, illness and death from COVID-19 has… Read More

Vaccines are a key part of the solution to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and, since the early stages of the crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) has argued that there needed to be coordinated attention given to ensuring that everyone, not just people living in rich countries, would receive adequate protection from the virus, as it spread rapidly across the… Read More