Despite multiple technological breakthroughs in the fight to control COVID-19, twice as many people died from it in 2021 compared to 2020. The Omicron variant is a stark reminder that effective vaccines are merely the first step toward ending the pandemic.

The pandemic has made global aging impossible to ignore as COVID-19-related mortality rises sharply with age. The intersection of the pandemic and this new demographic reality has exposed a gap in our global governance architecture. There is no single international institution responsible for safeguarding the rights and advocating for the interests of the world’s fastest-growing age group – those 65 and over.

With the Delta variant pushing US COVID cases back up, fully vaccinated people are wondering whether they need to start masking indoors again.Covid vaccines remain extremely effective against the worst outcomes of the disease –hospitalisation and death – and breakthrough infections remain uncommon.But experts say that one size doesn't fit all, and people should consider factors like community transmission, personal risk levels, and their own risk tolerance to help decide what's righ

The United States (US) began sending Vietnam two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, the White House said, in its latest assistance to countries struggling to tame the pandemic.The Moderna vaccine shipment – part of a first 80 million doses that President Joe Biden has pledged to allocate worldwide – should arrive in Vietnam this weekend, a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "This is just the beginning of doses being shipped to Southeast Asia

Although we have come a long way in the fight against COVID-19, the only thing that will alter the course of the pandemic decisively is a genuine act of global solidarity.

Countries belonging to the G7 and the European Union (EU) can afford to donate more than 150 million vaccines to countries in need without compromising their own goals, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said Monday.The world's seven richest states and the EU could help close the world's vaccine gap by sharing just 20 percent of their June, July and August stocks with the COVAX jab scheme for poorer nations, a study by British firm Airfinity showed."And they

Children around the world are not getting the nutrients they need, undermining their capacity to grow, develop and learn to their full potential.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday blasted critics of its investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and challenged those claiming to know better to come forward with the smoking gun.A WHO investigative team is in Wuhan, China - where the first cases were discovered in December 2019 - trying to piece together how the virus jumped from animals to humans before going on to kill more than two million people.The UN agency's emergencies director Michael Ryan hit out at

Seen from Europe, Asia, or even North America, Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, is as remote as can be.

China and the World Health Organization (WHO) could have acted faster to avert catastrophe during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, a panel of independent experts has concluded.The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said its evaluation of the start of the crisis in China "suggests that there was potential for early signs to have been acted on more rapidly".Containment measures should have been implemented immediately in all countries where transmiss