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While vaccine development was swift to combat COVID-19, just 60% of the global population has been fully immunized and viral variants remain a deadly threat, underscoring the importance of strengthening the “last mile” in vaccination. Ensuring equitable access to vaccines, overcoming structural obstacles to distribution, and combatting vaccine hesitancy will require cross-...
Eighteen months after a COVID-19 vaccine became available, high-income countries had administered more than 200 doses per 100 people; in low-income countries, the figure was almost 90 percent less. Access to diagnostics and therapies has been likewise constricted, underscoring the imperative of new approaches to global health equity. Investing in local manufacturing and sc...
More than $2.7 trillion worth of food, medical products, and tobacco, representing 20 percent of every dollar spent by US consumers, is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Always in the public eye, and often summoned to explain its actions to Congress, the FDA is as likely to be lauded as lambasted for its swift authorization of COVID-19 vaccines, its deci...
An entire generation of children in some of the world’s poorest countries are now protected against deadly infectious diseases, thanks largely to Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance. Impact: more than 16 million lives saved, vast healthcare cost savings, and greater global health security. A leading force behind the push for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, Gavi has played a...
Since its founding, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed billions of dollars to the search for and distribution of vaccines across the globe. Its knowledge, network, and resources are now being tapped amid the accelerated search for treatments for COVID-19. Gates joins Stephanie Mehta, editor in chief of Fast Company, and shares his expectations for a vaccine...
Seth Berkley, the CEO of GAVI, talks about the importance of vaccines in addressing global health challenges, the role of public-private partnerships in tackling inequities, and new advances in vaccine development.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, joins CNN Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, to discuss the current state of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent surge in cases as the US reopens. Fauci talks about the US response to the pandemic, including missed opportunit...
Sixty percent of American adults, and 75 percent of children, have been infected with SARS-CoV2. Coupled with immunity-boosting vaccines and medical progress, rates of severe disease, hospitalization, and death are all falling dramatically. Can we declare victory and move on? Or do the threats still facing vulnerable populations require continued precautions? The prospect...
COVID-19 vastly accelerated vaccine skepticism, such that even routine childhood immunizations, including shots that had largely eliminated measles, are now being questioned. Misinformation can be as contagious as disease, undermining faith in institutions, jeopardizing public health and safety, and distorting clinical decision making. Come watch a live demonstration that...
Machines are making a lot of decisions that used to be made by humans. Computer-driven algorithms can determine everything from which friends we keep up with on Facebook, to the prices that we pay for goods and services, to which neighborhoods get more attention from political candidates. But how do we hold machines accountable for the decisions they make? What’s at stake...
On any given day, dedicated scientists at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are promoting childhood vaccines, advancing disease prevention, tamping down on food-borne illnesses, tracking microbial outbreaks around the globe, collecting data on drug overdoses and tobacco use, and conducting research in 200 laboratories. In March 2018, after 20 yea...
From global health threats to the refugee crisis, to privacy and cybersecurity, international organizations and the private sector are often in a better position and more effective on the frontlines of transnational threats than governmental entities. Join the Global Head of Public Policy for Google, a doctor working to get vaccines to the world’s neediest, and the former...
For decades, public health experts warned of a coming pandemic and developed recommendations to prepare—yet when it arrived, the response was a catastrophic failure. With better surveillance, perhaps we could have slowed the worldwide spread of the virus. Had the threat become less politically charged, a consensus-driven strategy might have slowed it down. Certainly, stron...
Declining cancer death rates, promising research, and innovative technology suggest the tide may be turning in the long war against cancer. Clinical trials using CRISPR technology to modify immune system cells are increasing, cancer vaccines are the next frontier for immunotherapy, and blood tests capable of detecting early signals of multiple types of cancer appear promis...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Atlantic lambasted the US Food and Drug Administration for moving too slowly to approve vaccines with the provocative headline “The Death Toll of Delay.” Not long before, National Public Radio had run a piece titled “One-Third of New Drugs Had Safety Problems After FDA Approval.” As the agency tries to move safe and effective drugs as quic...
Polio is likely to be wiped off the planet in the next two years, a huge triumph for global health. Seventy-four cases of polio were reported in 2015, in contrast to 350,000 when eradication efforts began in 1988. Although polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is now a push towards the finish line, with creative strategies in place to attract religious l...
Invalid health news comes in many flavors. Some is utterly fake and potentially dangerous: asserting links between vaccines and autism, discrediting the reality of climate change. Other assertions feel somewhat different, like advertising claims that a pill can melt away pounds or a dietary supplement can make you stronger. A long-familiar willingness to dismiss facts in t...
Human morality is a set of cognitive devices designed to solve social problems. The original moral problem is the problem of cooperation, the “tragedy of the commons” — me vs. us. But modern moral problems are often different, involving what Harvard psychology professor Joshua Greene calls “the tragedy of commonsense morality,” or the problem of conflicting values and inte...
Long-range forces are changing the nature of work and how jobs will be created; they are also changing what kinds of jobs will be created. With tech and automation coming so quickly, which jobs will be replaced by machines? For those of us who will be hired, what skills should we possess? In this new, highly digitized economy, what kind of training will prospective employe...
Technology is swiftly disrupting all the norms of health care delivery, and more radical change lies ahead. Unmanned aerial vehicles (better known as drones) are delivering supplies; health services are moving out of medical settings and into the community; telemedicine is bringing specialty care to remote areas; and “collective superintelligence” at the intersection of hu...