Health

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Sunday pledged to invest $1.2 billion to help eradicate polio from the planet once and for all, at an international health conference in Berlin. “The eradication of polio is within reach. But the disease remains a threat (…)”, estimated Bill Gates, co-president of …

The Serum Institute of India said it plans to manufacture 20,000 to 30,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine by the end of November for use in trials against an outbreak in Uganda. The response to Uganda’s outbreak has been blunted by the absence of a proven vaccine against the …

Toxic syrups are banned in Senegal due to cascade of deaths that could be linked to cough medicines manufactured in India as the authorities are reassuring, but call for vigilance. “There is no reason to panic. Because the incriminated products are not authorized in Senegal”. This is the clarification provided …

The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday that a clinical trial of vaccines against the Sudan strain of Ebola could begin within weeks in Uganda as the disease reaches the capital Kampala, causing concern. The East African country declared an Ebola outbreak on …

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has directed traditional healers to stop treating people during the ongoing Ebola outbreak that has so far killed 19 people in the country. The president also directed security officials to arrest people suspected of having contracted the virus if they refuse to go into isolation. In …

The authorities in India have ordered a pharmaceutical company to stop producing cough syrups after reports that they may be linked to the deaths of dozens of children in The Gambia. The health minister in Haryana state, Anil Vij, said inspections at a factory of Maiden Pharmaceuticals found several violations …

Indonesia is in talks with several African countries, including Nigeria, to export and donate its homemade COVID-19 vaccine, its developer said on Friday. Indonesia is becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to approve a domestically developed COVID shot. Its approval for the shot, the detailed trial data of which …

The Ebola virus circulating in Uganda has mutated, according to Prof Pontiano Kaleebu of the Uganda Virus Research Institute. Prof Pontiano Kaleebu says there is however no evidence that it is any more transmissible than the original strain. They analysed samples from the first known case to be tested during …

Namibia has confirmed 54 cases of swine flu out of 190 suspected cases, the health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The central Otjozundjopa region and the area surrounding the capital Windhoek were the most affected, with 24 positive cases reported in each area. H1N1 influenza, also known as …

Ugandan health authorities confirmed the death of another health worker, an anaesthetic officer, who died in the early hours of Wednesday. Margaret Nabisubi, 58, is the fourth medical worker to die of Ebola, according to Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng. I regret to announce the passing of another Health worker, …