Exclusive: Freedoms have been crushed and free speech impeded by governments around the world, says António Guterres
The world is facing a “pandemic of human rights abuses”, the UN secretary general António Guterres has said.
Authoritarian regimes had imposed drastic curbs on rights and freedoms and had used the virus as a pretext to restrict free speech and stifle dissent.
Continue reading...Pandemics are global by definition. Only travel restrictions and equal vaccine access for all countries will end this crisis
Most people have already adjusted their expectations to a spring of disruption – but most are quietly hoping that by the summer, and into the autumn, life in the UK will have returned more or less to normal. Are they right to be confident? What can we do to avoid slipping back into a cycle of lockdowns? In short: how does this pandemic end, and how can we end it faster?
Globally, the UK is in the strong position of having at least five effective and safe vaccines, but there are major challenges ahead. We already know about variants, such as those arising in Kent, Brazil and South Africa, which are proving challenging in terms of being more transmissible, and having potentially more severe health outcomes in the case of the UK variant.
Continue reading...Australian infection expert, part of a team visiting Wuhan, says they were provided only with a summary of data
There is growing controversy over a World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic after one of its members said China had refused to hand over key data, and the US national security adviser said he had “deep concerns” about the initial findings.
An international delegation travelled to the Chinese city of Wuhan last month, as part of efforts to understand how the outbreak began. Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious disease expert who was part of the team, said they had requested raw patient data but were only given a summary.
Continue reading...China has fired back at the US over allegations from the White House that Beijing withheld some information about the coronavirus outbreak from World Health Organization investigators.
The White House on Saturday called on China to make data from the earliest days of the Covid-19 outbreak available, saying it had “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the WHO’s Covid-19 report were communicated.
Continue reading...Health minister says officials ‘really concerned’ about deaths in south-east region Nzerekore
Four people have died of Ebola in Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, the health minister said on Saturday.
Remy Lamah told AFP officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first since a 2013-16 epidemic – which began in Guinea – left 11,300 dead across the region.
Continue reading...Health minister says officials ‘really concerned’ after three deaths from the infectious disease
Guinea has entered an Ebola “epidemic situation” with seven cases confirmed, including three deaths, a leading health official in the west African nation has said.
“Very early this morning, the Conakry laboratory confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus,” Sakoba Keita said after an emergency meeting in the capital.
Continue reading...Comments from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came after another WHO expert said laboratory theory was ‘extremely unlikely’
The World Health Organization says it has not ruled out any theory on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, despite one top official earlier this week appearing to dismiss the idea it had escaped from a laboratory.
Speaking at a briefing on Friday, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said a summary report from the organization’s team sent to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus should be published next week, with a full report coming soon after.
Continue reading...Lancet commission review condemns Trump’s virus response; Two masks ‘substantially reduce expose US CDC says; cheap asthma drug appears to reduce risk of severe illness. Follow latest updates
The Czech Republic on Thursday announced a stricter lockdown in three districts from east to west where coronavirus infections have soared and hospitals are struggling to cope.
The order means a ban on movement from and into the eastern district of Trutnov on the border with Poland and the western districts of Cheb and Sokolov on the border with Germany, the health minister Jan Blatny said.
CNA is reporting three community cases among 12 new Covid-19 infections in Singapore.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said the remaining nine infections were imported and had been placed on stay-home notice upon arrival in Singapore. No new infections were reported in foreign worker dormitories.
Continue reading...Analysis: start of long process by Wuhan team junks Trump allies’ claim that coronavirus escaped from a laboratory
The press conference given by the World Health Organization’s investigative team in Wuhan is unlikely to silence the most conspiratorial of the conspiracy theorists who took their lead from the fever dreams of the former Trump administration.
Indeed, the first and very partial findings in what was always going to be a long and drawn-out process have not told us much we did not already know about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...The head of the World Health Organization-led team looking into how Covid-19 originated said on Tuesday its investigation had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed the picture of the outbreak.
Virus expert Peter Ben Embarek said the origin of the coronavirus pointed to a natural reservoir in bats. He said the hypothesis that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan was extremely unlikely and would not be part of any further study for his team
Continue reading...If nations make vaccine delivery equitable, step up testing and study variant genomes, the pandemic could be under control by January 2022
A year ago, on 30 January, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm at our disposal under international law.
At the time there were 98 confirmed cases and no deaths reported outside China. The WHO repeatedly urged all countries to capitalise on the “window of opportunity” to prevent widespread transmission of this new virus.
Continue reading...Mission is politically charged as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in outbreak response
An international team of World Health Organization experts has emerged from quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan, to begin much-delayed fieldwork into the origins of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fact-finding mission has been beset by controversy after the WHO accused China of dragging its heels over arrangements. The team arrived more than a year after doctors in the city first raised the alarm about a mystery new illness spreading among their patients.
Continue reading...Zhang Hai among those to tell of crackdown before WHO team begins investigation into pandemic’s origins
Relatives of Wuhan’s coronavirus dead have said Chinese authorities deleted their social media group and told them to keep quiet while a World Health Organization team was in the city preparing to begin an investigation into the pandemic’s origins.
Scores of people had banded together online in a shared quest for accountability from the Wuhan officials they blame for mishandling the Covid-19 outbreak that tore through the city a year ago, and caused more than 4,000 officially recorded deaths there.
Continue reading...Ten of the world’s most infectious diseases identified by the WHO not being catered for by drug firms
The world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms are little prepared for the next pandemic despite a mounting response to the Covid-19 outbreak, an independent report has warned.
Jayasree K Iyer, executive director of the Netherlands-based Access to Medicine Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the UK and Dutch governments and others, highlighted an outbreak of the Nipah virus in China, with a fatality rate of up to 75%, as potentially the next big pandemic risk.
Continue reading...Nations outbidding each other creates an ‘immoral race towards the abyss’
Pharmaceutical companies should do more to transfer vaccine technology to prevent the poorest countries falling behind in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, according to an expert.
The warning came from Dag-Inge Ulstein, the co-chair of the global council trying to speed up access to Covid vaccines for the world’s poor, known as the Act (Access to Covid-19 Tools) Accelerator. Ulstein, Norway’s international development minister, oversees the drive to ensure vaccines reach the poor – the Covax programme.
Continue reading...Incoming US administration criticises move to remove entry bans as independent panel criticises WHO for not declaring emergency until 30 January
The Trump and Biden camps have clashed over future Covid travel restrictions with less than two days to go before the handover of power in Washington. It comes as an independent panel said Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully a year ago, and criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for delays in declaring an international emergency.
In the US, a political row is brewing after Donald Trump announced he would rescind Covid entry bans on most non-US citizens arriving from Brazil and much of Europe, including the UK, effective 26 January, two officials briefed on the matter told Reuters.
Continue reading...The head of the World Health Organization has warned that as coronavirus vaccines are rolled out, the world faces a 'catastrophic moral failure' as richer countries administer the vaccine on a vast scale, while poor countries are left behind.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted that millions of doses had been given in higher-income countries while one of the world's poorest countries had administered only 25 doses
Continue reading...Director-general warns of ‘catastrophic moral failure’ if richer countries hoard treatment
The world is on the edge of a “catastrophic moral failure” in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, with just 25 doses administered across all poor countries compared with 39m in wealthier ones, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
It was the sharpest warning so far from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus about the dangers of vaccine hoarding since inoculations started being administered in 49 mostly high-income countries.
Continue reading...Prof Dominic Dwyer says he expects interesting answers even if they never find how and where the virus first infected humans
The medical virologist Prof Dominic Dwyer has barely been in China for 24 hours, but he has already joined several Zoom calls from his room in hotel quarantine planning the logistics of an ambitious investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The World Health Organization selected Dwyer, a director at New South Wales Health Pathology in Australia, for the complex and politically fraught task, along with 14 other physicians, scientists and researchers from around the world. Most of the team arrived in China on Thursday after months of intense diplomatic negotiations with Chinese authorities and setbacks to their entry.
Continue reading...Despite efforts to procure Covid vaccine, some nations will only vaccinate 20% of population
There are triumphant scenes as lorries leave a vaccine plant in Pune, India, loaded with boxes that will prevent thousands of deaths. Adar Poonawalla, the owner and chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, poses on the tailgate of a truck, making the most of his company’s “proud and historic” moment as the potential saviour of the nation – and even a large chunk of the world.
Poonawalla’s factory, the largest vaccine manufacturing complex in the world, is the best hope for immunisation for people in Africa and some low-income countries elsewhere – which could save them from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The Serum Institute has been contracted to supply the UN-backed Covax initiative, which subsidises low-income countries, with 200m doses of Covid-19 vaccines with an option on 900m more.
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