WHO’s 2025 Essential Medicines Lists (EML), published Friday, has included the active ingredients in popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy – semaglutide or other comparable GLP-1 receptor agonists – in a recommendation that recognizes the growing importance of the drugs in clinical treatment of diabetes worldwide. These drugs, as well as new PD-1/PD-L1 […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated government regulatory authorities in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom as WHO-Listed Authorities (WLAs), a status granted to national authorities that meet the highest international regulatory standards for medical products. The recognition widens the pool of WHO-recognized authorities significantly beyond the previously recognized authorities in Europe, the United […] Continue reading ->
The global childhood vaccination rate in 2024 held steady with 85% of infants and children receiving three doses of the vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT), used as a global benchmark for immunization rates overall. However large, continued gaps in coverage are propelling outbreaks, including the highest rate of measles cases since 2019. “In […] Continue reading ->
Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a […] Continue reading ->
CEO of Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) Dr Delese Mimi Darko has been appointed the inaugural Director-General of the African Medicines Agency (AMA) by the agency’s Conference of State Parties (CoSP) at a meeting in Rwanda this week. Darko has a “wealth of experience and a distinguished track record in regulatory excellence”, according to […] Continue reading ->
GENEVA, Switzerland — One in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified, a pervasive health crisis the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates kills over one million people globally each year. As the cost in millions of lives and billions of public health dollars from falsified medicines rises, member states at the […] Continue reading ->
Patients will face costlier medicine and European and Indian drug companies face billion-dollar losses if US President Donald Trump’s threat issued late Tuesday of “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” produced outside his country is realised. However, amid chaos on the financial markets, Trump back-pedalled on Wednesday and announced a 90-day pause on all tariffs except […] Continue reading ->
Tanzania has extinguished a deadly outbreak of Marburg virus, but elsewhere across Africa, an alarming surge of health crises continue to unfold – including expanding mpox infections in Uganda, a cholera outbreak in Angola and a first-ever cholera case in neighbouring Namibia. The Marburg virus outbreak in Tanzania has officially ended, Tanzanian health authorities declared […] Continue reading ->
In a breakthrough moment for Africa’s vaccine independence, two landmark deals could help put the continent on a path to becoming a producer, not just a buyer, of life-saving vaccines. For the first time, an end-to-end mRNA vaccine production platform will be built in Africa, with plans to manufacture 100 million doses annually. A separate […] Continue reading ->
As Africa battles a relentless mpox outbreak, a sudden freeze in United States foreign aid is crippling containment efforts, threatening vaccine distribution, and leaving the hardest-hit regions scrambling for solutions, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) warned on Thursday. In conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the epicentre of the outbreak, […] Continue reading ->
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