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Tag: Africa

US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history’s deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived.

Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding.

The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region’s genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere.

But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world’s biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home.

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WHO declares mpox outbreak a global health emergency

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the spread of mpox in multiple African countries a public health emergency of international concern, the second such declaration in the past two years called in response to transmission of the virus.

The latest decision came on the recommendation of a panel of experts convened to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the issue. It also follows a similar declaration Tuesday by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop this outbreak and save lives,” Tedros said in announcing the declaration of the PHEIC.

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BioNTech aims to start mRNA vaccine output in Rwanda in 2025

COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech (22UAy.DE) aims to start production at its mRNA vaccine factory site in Rwanda in 2025, company officials said on Monday, the first foreign company mRNA vaccine manufacturing site on the continent.

The German company’s first modular factory elements, based on shipping containers, were delivered to the Kigali construction site in March and were then assembled into so-called BioNTainers.

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Nearly half of COVID survivors in Africa have lingering symptoms, data reveal

A systematic review and meta-analysis estimates a nearly 50% long-COVID rate months after infection in Africa, with psychiatric conditions the most common manifestations.

Published today in Scientific Reports, the February 2023 literature search and analysis involved 25 observational, English language long-COVID studies with 29,213 infected African patients.

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