Category: Development

The number of coronavirus deaths also declined in all regions by 10 per cent over the same period, with 81,000 fatalities reported in the last week, the UN health agency said in its weekly epidemiological update on Tuesday.   2.3 million victims This brings the overall number of people who died from COVID-19 to more than 2.3 million, according to… Read More

More than 10 airlines are signing agreements with the UN agency to support its ‘Humanitarian Airfreight Initiative’, which will also act as a global logistics preparedness mechanism for other humanitarian and health crises over the longer term.    “Delivery of these life-saving vaccines is a monumental and complex undertaking, considering the sheer volumes that need to be transported, the cold chain requirements,… Read More

“Last week saw the lowest number of reported weekly cases since October”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) told journalists at a regular press briefing in Geneva.   Noting a nearly 50 per cent drop this year, he stressed that “how we respond to this trend” is what matters now.  While acknowledging that there is more reason… Read More

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