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COVID-19 vaccine scheme for poorest has $US2.6 billion left to spend as pandemic recedes

Boxes of AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccines, redeployed from the Democratic Republic of Congo, arrive at a cold storage facility in Accra, Ghana, on 7th May, 2021.

London, UKReuters Several billions of dollars left in a scheme to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s poorest could be diverted to prepare for other pandemics or to support vaccine manufacturing in Africa, the scheme’s partners said. The COVAX initiative, run by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization, and the Coalition for Epidemic […]

Malawi cholera death toll crosses 1,300: health official

Eliza Tangwe, 18, takes a dose of oral cholera vaccine at a health centre in response to the latest cholera outbreak in Blantyre, Malawi, November 16, 2022.

Johannesburg, South Africa Reuters The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Malawi has crossed 1,300, a senior Malawian health official said on Thursday, as the southern African country battles its deadliest outbreak yet. As of Wednesday, Malawi had recorded 40,284 cholera cases and 1,316 deaths in an outbreak that started in March, 2022, with […]

Russian coronavirus-denying ex-monk sentenced to seven years

Russia Moscow Nikolai Romanov

Moscow, Russia AP A former Russian Orthodox monk, who denied that the coronavirus existed and defied the Kremlin, was handed a seven-year prison sentence Friday. Nikolai Romanov, 67, who was known as Father Sergiy until his excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church, urged his followers to disobey the Russian Government’s lockdown measures and spread conspiracy […]

Uganda declares itself Ebola-free after swiftly turning tide on outbreak

Uganda Kampala Ebola awareness

Kampala, Uganda Reuters Uganda on Wednesday declared the end of a nearly four-month Ebola outbreak that it briefly struggled to contain but was then able to swiftly bring under control despite the absence of a proven vaccine against the viral strain in question. “We have successfully controlled the spread of Ebola in Uganda,” Health Minister […]

We’ve run out of cholera vaccines, WHO official says as disease surges

Swizterland Geneva WHO headquarters and logo

Geneva, Switzerland Reuters The global stockpile of cholera vaccines the World Health Organization helps manage is “currently empty or extremely low”, a WHO official said on Friday amid a resurgence of the disease around the world. The UN health agency says global fatality rates are rising and there are around 30 countries around the world […]

Measles now an imminent global threat due to pandemic, say WHO and CDC

DRC measles vaccine

Reuters There is now an imminent threat of measles spreading in various regions globally, as COVID-19 led to a steady decline in vaccination coverage and weakened surveillance of the disease, the World Health Organization and the US public health agency said on Wednesday. Measles is one of the most contagious human viruses and is almost […]

Poor access to safe water fuels cholera outbreak in Syria

Syria Idlib cholera awareness campaign

Damascus, SyriaReuters Poor access to safe water has exacerbated a cholera outbreak rampaging across Syria’s war-battered provinces, where local authorities are struggling to contain the spread with chlorine tablets and vaccines.  More than 35,000 suspected cases of cholera have been reported across the country, according to the United Nations’ children’s agency. UNICEF said only approximately […]