The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe was Friday pessimistic about vaccines' ability to put an end to the COVID pandemic, as new variants dash hopes of reaching herd immunity.Faced with the possibility that the virus may be around for many years, health officials must now "anticipate how to gradually adapt our vaccination strategy," in particular on the question of additional doses, Hans Kluge told reporters.In May, the WHO director had said "the pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) called Wednesday for countries to avoid giving out extra COVID jabs until year-end, pointing to the millions worldwide who have yet to receive a single dose."I will not stay silent when the companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world's poor should be satisfied with leftovers," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists.Speaking from WHO's headquarters in Geneva, Tedros urged wealthy count

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday launched a global data hub in Berlin to analyse information on emerging pandemic threats, filling the gaps exposed by COVID-19.The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence was inaugurated in the German capital by Chancellor Angela Merkel and WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said it would fill "a gap in the world's defences"."The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining crisis of our time it has taught the world many

A new COVID variant detected in South Africa has made headlines around the world.On Monday the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa issued an alert about the “C.1.2 lineage”, saying it had been detected in all provinces in the country, but at a relatively low rate.C.1.2 was first detected in May, the alert said, but Delta is still the dominant variant spreading in South Africa and the world.A pre-print, non-peer-reviewed paper published about the variant said C.1.2 “ha

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Monday that another 236,000 people could die from COVID in Europe by 1 December, sounding the alarm over rising infections and stagnating vaccine rates on the continent.The warning comes as the world passed the grim milestone of 4.5 million deaths from COVID since the start of the pandemic, according to an AFP tally Monday. Infections rates are ticking up globally again, as the highly transmissible Delta variant takes hold –especially among

President Joe Biden said Friday that China was withholding "critical information" on the origins of COVID-19 after the United States (US) intelligence community said it did not believe the virus was a bioweapon – but remained split on whether it escaped from a lab.The US, however, does not believe Chinese officials had foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of the pandemic that has now claimed 4.5 million lives, according to the unclassified summary of an eagerly awa

Ivory Coast began a roll-out of vaccinations against Ebola on Monday, after the country recorded its first known case of the disease since 1994, the health ministry said."Health workers, close relatives and contacts of the victim" were the first to be vaccinated, getting jabs from 5,000 doses sent from Guinea, spokesman Germain Mahan Sehi said.Ivorian health workers had previously said that vaccinations of "targeted groups" had already begun on Sunday.The single identified

China on Friday rejected the World Health Organization's (WHO) calls for a renewed probe into the origins of COVID-19, saying it supported "scientific" over "political" efforts to find out how the virus started.Pressure is once more mounting on Beijing to consider a fresh probe into the origins of a pandemic which has killed more than four million people and paralysed economies worldwide since it first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.A delayed and heavily

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday announced major international trials of three drugs to find out whether they improve the condition of hospitalised COVID-19 patients.Artesunate, imatinib and infliximab will be tested on thousands of volunteer patients in more than 600 hospitals in 52 countries."Finding more effective and accessible therapeutics for COVID-19 patients remains a critical need," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.Artesunate is a treatme

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged the 20 leaders with the power to overturn the "disgraceful" global imbalance in access to COVID-19 vaccines to reverse the tide before October.The WHO's Bruce Aylward said the world should be "disgusted" – and asked whether the situation could have been any worse had there been an active effort to block the planet's poor from getting vaccinated.The United Nations (UN) health agency has been increasingly infuria