World Trade Organization officials have circulated a draft proposal that would temporarily waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, paving the way for members to start discussing the plan.
That will compel members, including the deal’s brokers, to signal whether they’ll support the divisive proposal. Read more.
The timeline for the development of the COVID-19 vaccine was unprecedented: just 326 days from the sequencing of the coronavirus until the first jabs received emergency use authorization. Now experts at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations believe they can slash that window by more than two-thirds.
Influential expert on neglected tropical diseases and senior WHO official. Born on March 26, 1963 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she died from complications related to cancer on Feb. 10, 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland. Read more.
In March 2020, before the first COVID-19 case was even recorded in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni went on national television to announce a country-wide closure of schools. Calling schools the “perfect grounds for new infections,” he said he was making the “move early to avoid the stampede.”
Most of the country’s classrooms would remain closed for 22 months, one of the longest COVID-related shutdowns in the world.
They finally reopened in January, and educators are still assessing the fallout. The damage to State House—Uganda’s executive branch—meanwhile, is already clear. With his willingness to keep schools shuttered even as he lifted other restrictions, Museveni undermined his commitment to education as a top priority of his political agenda.
Recent audits of grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Kenya and Mozambique have identified gaps in the procurement and supply chain processes in both countries, contributing to essential drugs and commodities going out of stock.
Dismayed by the results, civil society groups are demanding accountability from the Global Fund. Read more.
Global health pioneer. Born on Oct. 26, 1959 in North Adams, MA, USA, he died after an acute cardiac event on Feb. 21, 2022 in Butaro, Rwanda. Read more.
Lawyer, politician, and advocate for women's rights and reproductive health care. Born on Feb. 5, 1945 in Abilene, TX, she died on Dec. 26, 2021 in Austin, TX. Read more.
A potential waiver of some intellectual property restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines negotiated by South Africa, India, the United States, and the European Union leaked this week to mixed reactions. Read more.
Svenja Schulze, Germany’s new development minister, is seen as one of the more progressive voices within her party, the Social Democrats, on climate policy at a moment when the issue is set to take on a central role across the new government. That means, observers said, that she and her new ministry could be positioned to have a significant impact. Read more.
A campaign to strike a more equitable balance between intellectual property protection and access to pharmaceuticals coalesced in a WTO ministerial declaration issued 20 years ago this month. But stark disparities in access to COVID-19 vaccines have spotlighted the limitations of the hard-won concessions outlined in that agreement, including the strict barriers still in place to accessing the full range of knowledge and technology needed to produce and distribute the shots.
As a result, more than 100 nations have united behind a proposal to temporarily waive protections on COVID-related products in a bid to increase vaccine production. While opposition from Europe has stalled the waiver proposal, it has also galvanized calls for a broader reconsideration of an intellectual property regime that critics say never fulfilled the promises made in Doha. Read more.
Querdenken emerged in April, just weeks into Germany’s first lockdown, and has grown rapidly. Its adherents are united in the belief that federal Covid-19 restrictions are wildly disproportionate and part of a broader plan to strip citizens of their basic rights and freedoms.
While the movement’s followers believe themselves to be on a righteous mission, exposing hidden truths to an unaware public, others warn that Querdenken may be setting its followers on a path toward extremism and dragging German politics at large further to the right. Read more.
A proposal introduced by South Africa and India seeks to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines and other technologies, but high-income countries are determined to block it. Read more.
Former Mexican Secretary of Health and Rector of UNAM. Born on Dec 29, 1925, in Iguala, Mexico, he died on Oct 12, 2020, of congestive heart failure in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Read more.
The global COVID-19 death toll stands at more than 1·3 million. Among the lives lost have been those of health-care workers, who have had crucial roles throughout the response and continue to serve at the front lines. It is not possible to honor all of the health workers who have died from COVID-19, but in telling the stories of a few of the health professionals from different specialties and various countries who lost their lives to the disease, these short obituaries serve as a tribute to the many other health workers who have died in the pandemic. Read more.
The French-German proposal on WHO reform released this year is already influencing discussions at the European level, but critics say it prioritizes the concerns of rich countries. Read more.