New York:Johnson & Johnson and its U.S.-based Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies today announced a settlement agreement with the State of New York and its participating subdivisions, including Nassau County and Suffolk County, resolving their opioid-related claims against the Company. With this agreement, the Company is removed from the trial scheduled to begin in Suffolk County on…

Beijing: Two COVID-19 vaccines from China’s Sinopharm showed more than 70% efficacy against symptomatic cases, but it remains unclear how much protection they provide against severe or asymptomatic cases, according to the first detailed result of a large late-stage study published to the public. A vaccine developed by a Wuhan-based subsidiary of Sinopharm was 72.8%…

London: Future Health has completely rebranded during the lockdown, and the flagship face-to-face event Future Health Innovations at ExCeL is now complemented by a global virtual conference series, under the brand UK Health Week. Free for delegates to attend, it is CPD and CME accredited. Participants will be able to connect, meet buyers and partake…

KARACHI- The Lancet today published the latest Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition Progress, including three new papers that build upon findings from the previous 2008 and 2013 Series, which established an evidence-based global agenda for tackling undernutrition over the past decade. Faculty from Aga Khan University is among the authors of the series of…

Colombia: Ivermectin, a controversial anti-parasitic drug that has been touted as a potential Covid-19 treatment, does not speed recovery in people with mild cases of the disease, according to a randomized controlled trial published on Thursday in the journal JAMA. Ivermectin is typically used to treat parasitic worms in both people and animals, but scientific…

USA: Public health officials recently announced that the SARS-CoV-2 variant L452R has become increasingly common in multiple Californian counties and is responsible for several large COVID-19 outbreaks in the state. L452R was first detected in Denmark in March 2020 and later identified in the US last year, but recent sequencing results from California show that…

New York: Serum samples from 20 individuals who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 thwarted a version of the coronavirus with the so-called N501Y mutation, according to a preprint posted to bioRxiv recently. This mutation is one of many sequence changes present in the B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 variants of SARS-CoV-2 that were first detected in…

USA:  During a Senate hearing recently, a group of doctors touted alternative COVID-19 treatments, including ivermectin and the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine. Medical experts have cautioned against using either of those drugs to treat COVID-19. Studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine has no benefit against the coronavirus and can have serious side effects. There is no evidence…

Karachi: The Ministry of National Health Services, emphasized that the new strain of the coronavirus recently indicated in Britain, has not made it to Pakistan yet. The ministry further added the situation in Pakistan is being monitored closely as all the passengers arriving from the United Kingdom (UK) are being evaluated medically. “As of today,…

GENEVA: The World Health Organization is urging nations to prepare for inevitable future pandemics, as it marks the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness. “If we fail to prepare, we are preparing to fail. … Last year, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board published its first report, which concluded, the world remains dangerously unprepared for a…