Category: Development

“We should learn from the history of leprosy. To better fight against an epidemic or a pandemic, we must eliminate discrimination and double standards for those who have been systematically left behind”. This is the message from Alice Cruz, an independent UN rights expert, and Special Rapporteur on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family… Read More

“More vaccines are being developed, approved and produced. There will be enough for everyone”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director General, speaking in Geneva.  “But for now, vaccines are a limited resource. We must use them as effectively and as fairly as we can. If we do that, lives will be saved.”  New ‘window of opportunity’  Saturday will mark… Read More

In her remarks to the event, Ms. Mohammed noted the far-reaching social, economic, and health impacts of the pandemic, the disproportionate effect that it has had on the most marginalized populations, and the 70 million extra people who have been pushed into poverty as a result of measures taken to curb the spread of the virus. A new future’ “COVID-19”,… Read More

In a Tweet, Mr. Guterres expressed his gratitude and good fortune at receiving the jab, and urged the international community to ensure that vaccines becomes available to everyone, on an equitable basis. “With this pandemic, none of us are safe until all of us are safe”, he wrote. 71-year-old Mr. Guterres was eligible to receive the vaccine on the basis… Read More

In a statement released by WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that a new approach is needed if diseases such as guinea worm and yaws are to be tackled: “This means injecting new energy into our efforts and working together in new ways to get prevention and treatment for all these diseases, to everyone who needs it”. 10-year plan This new… Read More

The development follows SAGE’s recommendations on 5 January on how the similar Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine should be used, as deaths from the new coronavirus topped 2.1 million globally. Both are so-called mRNA vaccines which trigger an immune response by teaching the body to make special proteins, as opposed to including any live or inactive weakened virus. The WHO Strategic Advisory… Read More

Every death is someone’s parent, partner, child, or friend, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organiztion (WHO), told the briefing. He noted that exactly a year ago, fewer than 1,500 cases of COVID-19 had been reported. ‘Take heart, take hope’  Vaccines have given the world hope, which, according to the WHO chief is why “every life we lose now is… Read More

In a joint appeal, Special Rapporteurs Ahmed Shaheed, Fernand de Varennes, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule and Tlaleng Mofokeng, said that the practice ran contrary to the beliefs of Muslims and other minorities. It ran the risk of increasing prejudice, intolerance and violence, they said in a statement, insisting that no medical or scientific evidence indicated that burying the deceased increased the risk of spreading communicable diseases… Read More

Commenting on the deal at the regular end-of-week press conference in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said pending emergency authorization, close to 150 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine should also be available for COVAX to distribute, up to the end of March.  February delivery date  “Together, these announcements mean COVAX could begin delivering doses in February, provided we can finalize a supply… Read More

“The virus can still travel from the vastly unvaccinated massive population of the Global South to the Global North, including in its increasingly mutating forms”, Obiora Okafor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and international solidarity, said in a statement.  He explained that with mutations constantly evolving, only inoculating rich countries would likely “complicate or delay” the eradication of the… Read More