Children in Barbados between the ages of 12 and 18 years old began receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw said the vaccine will be available at seven sites. Miss Bradshaw said the government made the decision to inoculate pre-teens and teens following consultations with stakeholders. She also acknowledged that not everyone would want to […]
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne in a media briefing, noted recently collected data reveals that there is a “mental health crisis” in the Americas. More people are suffering substantially added mental health problems at a time when services for them are also disrupted because of the sweep of the disease. “Today we are facing a […]
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, in a report, noted that the health facilities in three departments in post-earthquake Haiti are overwhelmed and called on the international community to meet the country’s “immense” need for medical personnel, supplies, equipment, and patient transportation. “In total 24 health facilities suffered damage, mainly first level of care,” she said […]
According to press reports, the death toll from this month’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti is now numbered at 2,207, with 344 people still missing. Including among the dead is Dr. Ousmane Touré, a World Health Organization (WHO) staff member. WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in paying tribute to Dr. Touré, said he was “a brilliant epidemiologist from Guinea, […]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said COVID-19 is “becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated” and that vaccinated people are protected against severe disease. The highly transmissible delta variant is fueling expanding outbreaks, but they are centered in parts of the country with lower vaccination rates. “We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country […]
The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the first new medication for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly twenty years. There is controversy surrounding the decision made by the FDA. Some Alzheimer’s experts have argued that there was not enough evidence to indicate that the drug can help patients. The drug aducanumab targets the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, […]
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Dr. Carissa Etienne has called on member countries to take steps to contain the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and rubella, while simultaneously undertaking coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations. She said COVID-19 caused significant disruptions to immunization programs in countries across the Americas, noting that “our health systems are stretched, and, in many places, […]
The second round of a World Health Organization “pulse survey” reveals that over one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, substantial disruptions persist, with about 90% of countries still reporting one or more disruptions to essential health services, marking no substantial global change since the first survey conducted in the summer of 2020. Within countries, however, the magnitude and extent of […]
New data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that reported annual cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States continued to climb in 2019, reaching an all-time high for the sixth consecutive year. The newly released 2019 STD Surveillance Report found: 2.5 million reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, the three most commonly […]
On Monday, India witnessed another record 273,810 new Covid-19 cases — the highest single-day figure so far, according to data from the Indian Ministry of Health. The country registered 1,619 coronavirus deaths in one day — a record high — bringing the total to 178,769. India, the world’s second largest country by population, has registered the second highest number of […]
