Nurith Aizenman

The successful anti-AIDS program PEPFAR is under threat in Congress

A Martínez

The AIDS relief plan PEPFAR is in the crosshairs of abortion politics in Congress. It has widely enjoyed bipartisan support, until now, and a key re-authorization may lapse.

WHO says COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency

Leila Fadel

The World Health Organization has lifted the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for COVID-19. The declaration had been in effect since Jan. 30, 2020.

Munyaradzi Musvosvi, a researcher who works for the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, in a storage facility at the University of Cape Town that holds in deep freeze the blood samples of people exposed to TB. He's part of a team working to develop a potential mRNA vaccine by looking at the immune cells in the blood samples.

Frozen cells reveal a clue for a vaccine to block the deadly TB bug

Nurith Aizenman

Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million a year — the second deadliest infectious disease after COVID-19. Using immune cells and mRNA technology, scientists in South Africa are working on a new vaccine.

The impact of the Ukraine war on food supplies: 'It could have been so much worse'

Nurith Aizenman

That's the view of Joseph Glauber of the International Food Policy Research Institute. He considers the fear the war would lead to a surge in food prices – and a dramatic worsening of world hunger.

Scientists race to detect new pathogens before they can spark another pandemic

Nurith Aizenman

Disease researchers from South Africa were the first to identify the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus. Scientists there are racing to detect new pathogens before they can spark another pandemic.

the Imvanex vaccine, used against monkeypox and often referred to as JYNNEOS, is manufactured by only one company: Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic. Global supplies are limited. Africa, where the current outbreak began, is shut out.

Is there enough monkeypox vaccine to go around? Maybe yes, more likely no

Nurith Aizenman

Only one company makes the currently used monkeypox vaccine. Supply is limited in wealthy nations like the U.S. Less well-off nations, like Nigeria, where the outbreak began, have no vaccines at all.

Brazilian scientist Sotiris Missailidis heads research and development at his country's premier agency for vaccine development, the Bio-Manguinhos Fiocruz foundation. He's been a key advocate for shifting Brazil's strategy toward inventing its own vaccines.

A dire moment in the pandemic ... was the chance he'd been waiting for

Nurith Aizenman

How Sotiris Missailidis, head of R&D in Brazil's vaccine agency, used the COVID crisis to push through a game-changing effort for middle-income countries to invent their own mRNA vaccine.

Here's a computer-generated image of the omicron variant of the coronavirus — also known as B.1.1.529. Reported in South Africa on Nov. 24, this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.

The mystery of where omicron came from — and why it matters

Nurith Aizenman

How did this new strain of the coronavirus evolve? Researchers are investigating various possibilities. One leading theory involves ... just one person.

The availability of new COVID-19 treatments will help low-income countries

Nurith Aizenman

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Merck have agreed to allow generic manufacturers to make inexpensive versions of their anti-viral pills to treat COVID-19.

Members of a team at the Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines lab in Cape Town, South Africa. The World Health Organization has enlisted the company to replicate Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna won't share its vaccine recipe. WHO has hired an African startup to crack it

Nurith Aizenman

It's the first step in an audacious plan to solve vaccine inequity by setting up the manufacturing of mRNA vaccines across low-resource countries.