Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
COVAX, the global initiative to coordinate the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in an equitable way, is crucial for bringing the pandemic under control.
But COVAX’s aim of delivering 2 billion doses to participating countries by the end of 2021 — including 92 low-income countries that can’t (...)
The ongoing global inequality in people’s access to life-saving Covid-19 vaccines is not just a global public health issue, it also threatens the inclusivity of the COP26 climate negotiations and other important global summits. The already delayed climate talks or COP26 to be held in Glasgow, (...)
At the end of 2020, there was a strong hope that high levels of vaccination would see humanity finally gain the upper hand over SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In an ideal scenario, the virus would then be contained at very low levels without further societal disruption or (...)
We should be wary of simplistic uses of history, but we can learn from the logic of social responses
There is a saying among epidemiologists: “If you’ve seen one pandemic, you’ve seen one pandemic.” Echoing this trade wisdom in an interview two weeks ago, Bruce Aylward, the assistant director of (...)
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, reportedly attributed the success of the COVID-19 vaccines to “capitalism” and “greed”. But he is wrong – the idea that private ingenuity and naked competition produced the vaccines is a complete fantasy.
Before COVID-19, the vaccine market was notoriously (...)
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared that Covid-19 was a global pandemic. A year since, there have been more than 116.5 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 globally, including an almost 2.6 million deaths reported to the WHO. Here in the UK, government (...)
News of the blockage of a shipment of 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Europe to Australia has caused concern and outrage.
The immediate problem will probably be quickly solved through diplomatic channels. Even if it is not, onshore manufacturing of the AstraZeneca vaccine will soon make up for (...)
As of February 25, a total of 221.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered around the world. Well over one-third of these doses were in just two countries — the United States and the United Kingdom.
A study in mid-November analysed commitments to buy 7.48 billion doses of (...)
Bangladesh, South Africa and Uganda all appear set to pay more for the vaccine than the EU.
Developing countries have found themselves in double jeopardy as they try to procure coronavirus vaccines: Not only are they having a hard time securing jabs as richer countries snap up production, but (...)
Comparing the history of the Covid-19 pandemic in Asia and Europe (as well as between Asian and European countries) aids discussion of the choices and means of a health policy. The answers to some questions may be obvious, or prove much more complex.
The history of any epidemic (and a fortiori (...)
New research shows global death rates among patients in intensive care have fallen from 60% to 36%
Death rates among people who end up in intensive care with Covid-19 have improved dramatically since the start of the pandemic thanks to advances in treatment, new research has found.
The (...)
Production of new flu vaccine each year shows it should be possible to adapt to coronavirus variants if necessary.
The technology exists to rapidly tweak vaccines in the face of new coronavirus mutations. But it would take time, and a global strategy is needed to ensure that scientists stay (...)
As countries across the world begin to purchase and roll out COVID-19 vaccines, a key question is how far the vaccine is from reaching Africa and how accessible it will be for the continent. Moina Spooner, Commissioning Editor with The Conversation Africa, asked Mosoka Fallah, an expert on (...)
The race is on to secure vaccines that will protect people from COVID-19. But it’s already become apparent that there is gross inequality playing out in the procurement and distribution of the new drugs. One reason is intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is (...)
Covid-19 provides a frightening glimpse of an uncertain future, writes Alan Thornett.
It is not just out of control, but on a global rampage. There have now been 52 million cases and 1,300,000 deaths world-wide. Another million deaths have gone unrecorded, and another million have died because (...)
As we move into the last quarter of 2020, the virus that has defined this troubled year is showing no signs of going away. In the absence of a vaccine or a broadly effective treatment, some are now saying that we must learn to live with COVID-19. But what does that actually look like?
It’s a (...)
There is a global effort to distribute vaccines to poorer countries, but some of the world’s largest countries, including the U.S., Russia and China, do not intend to support the effort.
That lack of backing could have devastating consequences for accessing a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. and (...)
• Modelling by Chinese data scientists finds the basic reproduction number around 8 for earliest outbreak in China and in recent months in America
• Team suggests transmission in hospitals is different from those in the community
A new coronavirus carrier in town could pass the virus to (...)
As the world approaches 1 million deaths from COVID-19, we must confront the fact that we are taking a far too narrow approach to managing this outbreak of a new coronavirus.
We have viewed the cause of this crisis as an infectious disease. All of our interventions have focused on cutting (...)
In his article, “C’est la lutte finale“, Mike Davis argues: “The current pandemic on a global scale exposes and widens the existential divides within and between societies, and reminds us that the survival of the poorest fifth of humanity is increasingly at question.” It’s an important piece in (...)
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