Nine biopharma companies sign pledge to safely develop & deploy a Covid-19 vaccine. Amidst mounting pressure to quickly roll-out a Covid-19 vaccine, nine pharma companies have pledged to seek regulatory approval only after their vaccine candidate demonstrates safety and efficacy in large-scale phase III clinical trials.

National Institute of Allergy and nfectious Diseases (NIAID)

AstraZeneca pauses global coronavirus vaccine trial after serious adverse effects. AstraZeneca halted its phase 2/3 coronavirus vaccine trial on Tuesday because of a serious and unexpected adverse event in one British participant. It is still unclear whether the adverse effects were due to the vaccine candidate.

A happier marriage between science and policy? Advice from Swiss public health experts. Whether it is the Covid pandemic that has already killed over 902,000 people worldwide, or the climate crisis, which could kill millions more, it’s becoming more and more obvious that evidence-based policies are evermore critical. But how can we get policymakers to listen?

Stigmatization hampers Kenya’s Covid-19 war. After Nairobi banker Peter Karagu blogged openly about his illness as well as his recovery from his hospital bed, he was shocked to find that upon his release, neighbors including his pharmacist, were terrified of him. Such stigmatization hinders reporting and treatment of the disease.

A miracle Covid-19 vaccine the first time round? An unrealistic hope, warns British government adviser. As the worldwide scramble for a Covid-19 vaccine continues into the fall, we must avoid false hopes that the first vaccine will suddenly solve the pandemic, warns Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, the second-largest health charity in the world. He adds that the first vaccine may only be partially effective in some age groups like younger people, and may not confer long-lasting immunity to the coronavirus.

Keystone / EPA / Abir Sultan

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Bnai Brak, Israel, study the Torah in plastic-separated capsule tables to prevent infection with Covid-19. Israel’s SARS-CoV-2 infection rate is currently one of the highest in the world, leading to the partial closure of 30 cities across the country - mostly Arab communities as well as ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, which also suffer from the highest rates of urban poverty and crowding.

10 September | Online: Public Health Preparedness – Hard Lessons of Covid-19. What have we learned from the US experience during the coronavirus pandemic, and how can we quickly apply them to outpace Covid-19 and the next global health threat? As part of the 2020 Virtual National Research Forum, tune in to a discussion with The Lancet’s editor-in-chief, Richard Horton, in a session moderated by the American Public Health Association.

11 September | Online: Stronger together – Solidarity for an accessible Covid-19 vaccine. The European Health Forum (Gastein) presents the second in a series of virtual events of its annual conference. Moderated by Ilona Kickbusch, founding director of the Global Health Centre at The Graduate Institute, the event will bring together speakers from civil society and the pharma industry to discuss changes in today’s pharmaceutical R&D reality, especially in regard to vaccines development.

17 September | Online: Using The Right To Health To Restore Dignity. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the new UN special rapporteur on the right to health, will explore how the right to health can be used as a tool to restore dignity. She will also explain that vulnerability is a result of structural drivers like race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

17 September | Online: Achieving Gender-Responsive Global Health. Gender inequities in global health weaken our collective ability to tackle Covid-19 and to improve health for all. This high-level digital summit will discuss the need for gender-transformative policy within global health security, with Women in Global Health, the Wagner Foundation and Foreign Policy.