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Global counterfeit scheme likely behind Fake Ozempic spread
Forged drug batch numbers, which are being used by criminals to sell dangerous lookalike weight loss products, could be linked to a massive global...
TIME ‘Kid of the Year’ teen invents skin cancer soap
An American teenager is making waves in the oncological research world, having invented a soap which he hopes will, in the future, be used...
New cholera vaccine-makers gearing up as global stocks run out
The global stockpile of cholera vaccine has dried up, with doses being given to patients as fast as they are produced, but the good...
Global leaders call for urgent agreement on pandemic deal
A group of more than 100 global leaders has called for governments to reach agreement on an international deal to prepare for and prevent...
Plunging global fertility rates will lead to big world divide
Fertility rates in nearly all countries will be too low to sustain population levels by the end of the century, and most of the...
FDA green-lights third jab for immunocompromised people
The US Food and Drug Administration is poised to amend the emergency use authorisations for the Pfizer and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to allow...
Confronting America's next national health disaster: long-haul COVID-19
Now that more than half of all US adults have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, masking and distancing mandates have been relaxed, and COVID-19 cases...
EU agrees to return J&J vaccine doses from SA and import none further
The EU is to return doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine it imported from South Africa, and no more doses will leave...
After Israel dropped the vaccine ball, boosters show signs of taming Delta
After seeing it’s early vaccine successes undermined by the Delta variant, Israel’s COVID-19 vaccine booster drive is beginning to impact on the country’s high...
India approves world's first needle-free, DNA-based COVID-19 vaccine
The Drug Controller-General of India (DCGI) has granted emergency use approval to pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila's needle-free vaccine, ZyCoV-D, the world’s first ever DNA-...
Another key pro-Ivermectin meta-analysis is retracted
Less than a month after the withdrawal of a widely touted preprint claiming that Ivermectin could successfully treat COVID-19, the authors of a meta-analysis...
China seals off city as worst virus outbreak in a year grows
Chinaʼs worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic a year and a half ago has escalated, with dozens more cases around the...
200,000 protest in France against health pass law
For the third week in a row, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets around France to protest the governmentʼs COVID-19 health pass...
WHO's pandemic efforts in poorer nations face a $11.5bn funding crunch
The World Health Organization is seeking $11.5 billion in urgent funding to fight the more infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus, a WHO draft...
SA medical students stranded in Cuba sell their clothing to survive
A group of medical students, who have completed their fifth year of studies in Cuba and expected to return to South Africa last year,...
More than 50% of British COVID hospitalisations tested positive only after admission
More than half of COVID-19 hospitalisations in Britain are patients who tested positive only after admission, leaked NHS data reveal. The Telegraph reports that...
GMC survey: COVID stress hammers Britain's trainee doctors
One-third of trainee doctors in the UK are feeling burnt out to a high or very high degree amid the COVID pandemic, up from...
J&J vaccine recipients may need boosters against Delta variant
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is substantially less effective against the Delta and Lambda variants than against the original virus and booster shots...
COVID-19 might have killed four million people in India – Harvard study
Research published this week by the Center for Global Development in the United States found that COVID-19 has likely killed several million people in...
CDC: Get the vaccination even if you have had COVID-19
With the Delta variant surging in the United States, doctors are urging everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated – including the more than...
Delta variant’s dominance in much of the world forces governments to change tack
The Delta variant of the coronavirus is now the dominant lineage in much of the world and has forced a rethink in public health...
COVID shots for all may become mandatory, warns French president
Compulsory vaccination may be only way to normal life, says French president Emmanuel Macronas as the Delta wave grows, writes Medical Brief.
Macron raised the possibility...
Delta variant may be transmitted in ‘scarily fleeting’ contacts
Australian CCTV footage suggests that “scarily fleeting” contact of “five to 10 seconds” with the COVID-19 Delta variant can infect, reports The Guardian.
Based on...
Chinese vaccines: Less effective antibodies in Delta variant
Antibodies triggered by two COVID-19 vaccines developed in China are less effective against the Delta variant compared with other strains, but the shots still...
Efficacy of Chinese vaccines questioned after outbreaks
With more than 90 countries using COVID-19 vaccines from China, experts say recent infections in those places are “a cautionary tale” in the global...
Ivermectin added to world’s largest clinical trial of possible COVID-19 treatments
From today, Ivermectin is being investigated in the UK as part of the Platform Randomised Trial of Treatments in the Community for Epidemic and...
Previous COVID infection may not offer long-term protection – UK study
Previous infection with coronavirus does not necessarily protect against COVID-19 in the longer term, especially when caused by new variants of concern, an Oxford...
Legal first in UK as NHS trust fined for baby's death
An NHS trust has been fined a record US$1 million (£761,000) following a landmark prosecution by the Care Quality Commission for failing to protect...
Seven countries report more vaccine-derived polio cases
Seven countries – Afghanistan and six African nations – have reported more polio cases in the past week, all involving circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type...
Landmark UK change to LGBT blood donation rules but Africa restriction remains
NHS Blood and Transplant has introduced new eligibility rules that will allow more men who have sex with men to donate blood, platelets and...
Biden shuts down US State efforts to find a Wuhan lab leak
President Joe Biden's team has shut down a US State Department effort launched late in the Trump administration to prove the coronavirus originated in...
India pauses major COVID-19 vaccine exports until October
India is unlikely to resume major exports of COVID-19 vaccines until at least October as it diverts shots for domestic use, government sources told...
US claims over 130 incidents of Havana Syndrome brain injury
There have been more than 130 incidents of unexplained brain injury known as Havana Syndrome among US diplomats, spies and defence officials, some of...
Independent COVID-19 response review: WHO and governments failed
Describing the COVID-19 pandemic as the 21st Century's "Chernobyl moment", an independent panel has found that there were serious failures by both the World...
FDA authorises Pfizer vaccine for adolescents
US Food and Drug Administration has expanded the emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to include adolescents 12 through 15 years...
WHO reclassifies India variant as being of global concern
The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the triple-mutant B.1.617, known as the India variant, is now classified as a variant of global...
India accounts for 25% of all global pandemic deaths in past week
India accounted for 46% of global cases and 25% of global deaths reported in the past week, as the country’s coronavirus deaths rose by...
As 36% of British doctors eye retirement, patients complain about telemedicine
Patients in the UK are finding it increasingly hard to see their GPs, with warnings that pandemic restrictions have too often “closed the door”...
Thousands at risk from reused nose swabs at airport
Several employees of a pharmaceutical company have been arrested in Indonesia for allegedly washing and reselling used COVID nasal swab test kits, reports BBC...
CDC outlines who should — and shouldn't — take J&J's vaccine
In a call with clinicians, the US Centers for Disease Control has outlined who should should avoid the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, reports...