The COVID-19 outbreak, since it originated in Wuhan, China towards the end of 2019, has spread globally since January of 2020. Since then, the disease has been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic. More than a year on since this declaration, the disease has spread across the globe, claiming more than […]
Infectious diseases
Global Health Newsletter XXIII
Virtually two years since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a pandemic, COVID-19 has already accounted for close on 350 million cases and more than 5.5 million fatalities. The “good” news is that the faster it spreads these days, the lower its deaths. The Omicron variant appears to be a more benevolent avatar though […]
Global Health Newsletter XXII
Mass testing of the 14 million residents of Tianjin, a city near China’s capital Beijing, began after a score of COVID-19 cases were discovered. At least two cases of the Omicron variant were found. Lockdowns continue in Xi’an and Yuzhou, two other large cities affected by outbreaks. Cases have also been identified in Hong Kong. […]
Global Health Newsletter XXI
The Omicron coronavirus variant dampened New Year festivities around much of the world, with Paris cancelling its fireworks show, London relegating its one to television, and New York City scaling down its famous ball drop celebration in Times Square. The illuminated ball made of Waterford crystal panels slids down its pole at the midnight hour […]
Global Health Newsletter XX
For COVID-19, small seems to be beautiful. First we had BioNTech, a tiny operation headed by a Turkish immigrant couple in Germany that gave us the Pfizer vaccine. Now along comes a small Maryland biotechnology company, Novavax, finally joining the ranks of high-profile COVID-19 vaccine developers, winning emergency authorisations for its candidate. (www.science.org/content/article/novavax a). The […]
Global Health Newsletter XIX
As we stagger towards 2022, the words of that old Carpenters’ song come back suddenly: “Its yesterday once more!” Unlike that song, this is a nightmare, not nostalgia. COVID-19 devastated the world back in 2020 when vaccines were a faint glimmer at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel. The vaccines arrived at the threshold […]
Global Health Newsletter XVIII
Two weeks after the Omicron variant was identified, hospitals are bracing for a COVID-19 tsunami, according to a report in economist.com (www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/12/11/early-data-on-omicron-show-surging-cases-but-milder-symptoms). In South Africa, where it has displaced Delta, cases are rising faster than in earlier waves. Each person with Omicron may infect 3-3.5 others. Delta’s most recent rate in the country was 0.8. […]
The history of polio in India
“I didn’t know immunization could have saved my child,” Munni Begum reflected. More than thirty years ago, Munni’s infant son, Zulfikar Ahmed, fell victim to polio. Now she volunteers as a ‘change agent’. This involves working in her local community of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, where she encourages other mothers to immunise their children and […]
Does Omicron mean an endemic COVID-19?
COVID-19 becoming an endemic condition has been discussed as an eventuality since the start of the pandemic. Omicron, with the assumption that cases are often less severe, may be the start of this. Given the virality of COVID-19 – and the sheer number of conditions and pace at which it spread – it was always […]
Global Health Newsletter XVII
It’s been just a year since the first anti-COVID-19 vaccine surfaced. And the virus has again turned up as a complicated avatar, its fifth since the original emerged from Wuhan in China two years ago. The World Health Organization (WHO) has christened it Omicron. Since its emergence in South Africa on 24 November, cases have […]