Category: Development

This is he first time the disease has been reported in the country since the deadly 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa which claimed over 11,000 lives.  Very concerned by reports of 4 suspected Ebola deaths in Guinea. @WHO is ramping up readiness & response efforts to this potential resurgence of #Ebola in West Africa, a region which suffered so much… Read More

“We know that this post-COVID-19 condition – or as some patients also call it ‘long COVID’ and some clinicians call it ‘long COVID’ – is a heterogenous group of symptoms that occur after the acute illness”, said Dr. Janet Diaz, Team Lead, Health Care Readiness at WHO.  “So, these are symptoms or complications that can happen potentially a month after, three months after, or even six months after,… Read More

Briefing UN Member States on Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus drew attention to a $27 billion financing gap in the ACT Accelerator, which supports the development and equitable distribution of coronavirus tests, treatments and vaccines globally.  “The longer this gap goes unmet, the harder it becomes to understand why, given this is a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars that… Read More

“Even if you have the circulation of a variant in a country, there is no reason that we see for now, not to use the AstraZeneca vaccine as indicated, to be able to reduce the levels of severe disease in that population”, said Dr Alejandro Cravioto, Chair of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE).  The development follows the recent release of data from a study in South… Read More

Dr. Peter Ben Embarek from the World Health Organization (WHO) was speaking during a press conference in Wuhan, China, at the end of a four-week mission to the city where the new coronavirus first emerged in December 2019.  “Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more… Read More

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking one day after South Africa announced it was temporarily suspending rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a relatively small study revealed it provided reduced protection against the variant first identified in the country.  A role for the public and manufacturers  Tedros described the development as “concerning news”, though noting important caveats related to… Read More

“In one sense, that’s good news, and a remarkable achievement in such a short timeframe”, World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists at a regular press briefing in Geneva.   However, he noted that “more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60 per cent of global GDP”.  This amounts… Read More

The aim of Wednesday’s announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners, is to help Governments to prepare their vaccine distribution programmes, by providing details about which vaccine they can expect to receive, between now and the end of June. UN Children’s Fund UNICEF – which plays a key role in immunisation campaigns worldwide – welcomed the development, describing COVAX as… Read More

More than a year since the new coronavirus crisis began, its impact on cancer care has been stark, with “50 per cent of governments (having) cancer services partially or completely disrupted because of the pandemic”, said Dr André Ilbawi, from WHO’s Department of Noncommunicable Diseases.  “Delays in diagnosis are common. Interruptions in therapy or abandonment have increased significantly,” he continued, adding that this would likely have an impact in the total… Read More

“There are still many countries with increasing numbers of cases, but at the global level, this is encouraging news”, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking during the agency’s bi-weekly briefing from Geneva.  The development and approval of safe and effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of a new virus is providing a much-needed source of hope.… Read More