Month: February 2022

With one in five people worldwide developing cancer during their lifetimes, prevention of the disease has become one of the most significant public health challenges of the 21st century.

To mark World Cancer Day, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research of Cancer (IARC) launched on Friday the World Code Against Cancer Framework, an online platform that will promote prevention globally and the development of Regional Codes to help fight the disease.

Based on current scientific evidence, at least 40 per cent of all cancer cases could be prevented with effective primary prevention measures, and further mortality can be reduced through early detection of tumours.

Regional differences

Dr. Carolina Espina, the IARC scientist who leads the project, explains that some risk factors are common worldwide, but some patterns are specific to certain regions and socioeconomic and cultural conditions.

Because of that, the new framework provides a common strategy and methodology to develop recommendations tailored to the context and needs of local populations.

The framework builds on the success of the fourth edition of the European Code Against Cancer.

“This new platform will host existing Regional Codes Against Cancer, such as the European Code…as well as Regional Codes that are currently under development, such as the Latin America and the Caribbean Code Against Cancer, and other future Regional Codes”,Dr.Espina explained.

The Latin America and the Caribbean Code Against Cancer is expected to be launched in 2023. It will be the first regional adaptation of the European Code Against Cancer.

Rays of Hope Initiative

Also on Friday, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced a new initiative, called Rays of Hope, to support Member States with diagnosis and treatment using radiation technologies, beginning with African countries most in need.

In a joint statement, the World Health Organization (WHO)Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the IAEA Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi,explained how low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are disproportionately affected.

By 2040, over 70 per cent of cancer deaths are expected to occur in LMICs.

According to the two officials, recommended interventions for preventing cancer and other noncommunicable diseases have not been adequately implemented, and treatment remains inaccessible in many parts of the world.

“Globally, an estimated half of people diagnosed with cancer may require radiotherapy as part of their care, yet many countries do not have a single radiotherapy machine”, they say.

The disparity is particularly acute in Africa where nearly 70 per cent of countries reported that radiotherapy is generally unavailable.

The IAEA and WHO have a long-standing collaboration to support Member States to address their cancer burdens.

The organizations have successfully supported more than 90 governments through imPACT review missions, and through WHO cancer initiatives in cervical, childhood and breast cancers.

Source: United Nations

South African pharmaceutical company Afrigen is the first on the continent to make an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine using Moderna's publicly available data. The company hopes to start clinical trials of the vaccine in November.

Afrigen is one of the companies taking part in a World Health Organization-backed hub to develop vaccines for low- and middle-income countries. Afrigen Managing Director Petro Terblanche said the mRNA vaccine was made with the company's own knowledge base, processes and people. She said there were no technology transfers from any third party.

"The latest development at the mRNA hub at Afrigen in Cape Town is that our scientists have used the sequence of the Moderna vaccine 1273 published by Stanford University in an open-source manner and formulated a drug product at laboratory scale. They are currently doing more batches and analytical tests to make sure that they have the quality in place. So this is the first lab scale full end-to-end vaccine candidate that has been developed," she said.

Terblanche said the company did not need permission from Moderna because its vaccine is still in the research and development stage.

"The sequence is published in the first place, secondly we are operating in the R&D space," she said. "We have full freedom to operate, an exemption under the Bolar Exemption in IP law. So up to phase 3 clinical trials we are completely legal, and we don't need any permission. Once that product is commercialized and there are IP constraints, we need to get a voluntary license for that."

Terblanche said they would be asking Moderna to voluntarily license the vaccine to them, as it will be mutually beneficial to the companies and to low- and middle-income countries that will use this technology.

She added that they were using the new vaccine as a test case for a second-generation vaccine that is in the design phase.

Moderna has not commented on Afrigen's announcement, but it was widely reported late last year that the company had paused a patent dispute with the U.S. government over its coronavirus vaccine.

Moderna had been disputing claims that three U.S. government scientists were co-inventors. However, the company said it would not pursue the fight for now, as it did not want to take attention away from battling the pandemic.

Terblanche acknowledged support from scientists in other countries for Afrigen's work.

"This is our learning case and we're pleasantly surprised with the results, but the design of the new formulation is already happening with the scientists and with technical partners globally," she said. "It's not only us, it's a fantastic partnership with scientists in the U.S. and in Europe."

South Africa's acting director general of the National Health Department, Dr. Nicholas Crisp, welcomed news of the mRNA vaccine development.

"We're very pleased to note that they've been picking up speed very fast in their capabilities," he said. "It's very exciting, it's very important for the country. It's one of a number of facilities that we are busy working on as a country between the department of health and science and innovation and other partners. So very encouraging."

The World Health Organization's regional director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said 11% of the African population is fully vaccinated, and 85% have not received a single dose. She added that 239,000 people in Africa have died due to the pandemic.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA— More than 12,500 coronavirus-related deaths were registered worldwide in the past 24 hours, making Thursday the deadliest day since July 2021, the World Health Organization said.

As of Feb 3, as many as 383,509,779 novel coronavirus cases and 5,690,824 coronavirus-associated deaths were registered across the globe.

The number of confirmed cases grew by 3,015,863 over the past day and the number of fatalities increased by 12,513. It was the highest daily fatality figure registered since July 21, 2021, when the novel coronavirus infection claimed the lives of 20,111 people all over the world.

The WHO statistics is based on officially confirmed data from the countries. The threshold of 350 million cases was crossed on Jan 25, of 300 million on Jan 8, of 250 million on Nov 9, of 200 million on Aug 5.

The biggest number of coronavirus cases was reported from the United States (74,787,329), followed by India (41,803,318), Brazil (25,620,209), France (19,322,157) and the United Kingdom (17,515,203). The biggest number of fatalities was reported from the United States (884,477), followed by Brazil (628,067), India (498,983), Russia (333,357) and Mexico (306,920).

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK