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 global pandemic,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.In a video statement to launch the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, Tedros warns nations against lurching from one outbreak to another while doing nothing to prepare and prevent this from happening. …

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Sunday that the country is “really at a critical time” in confronting the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of new cases is soaring even as the first 1.9 million Americans have been vaccinated.  Fauci, who was vaccinated last week, told CNN on Sunday that it is “very tough” for people to not socialize over the holidays even though health experts have strongly advised against it.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to …

European Union gave approval on Dec. 21 for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, the latest regulatory go-ahead for the shot, while the United States authorised Moderna Inc’s vaccine on Dec. 19, the second for the country and the first for the company worldwide. The following is what we know about the race to deliver vaccines to help end the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide: Who is furthers along?  U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech are the COVID-19 vaccine trailblazers. On Nov. …

Arifullah Khan had just administered another polio vaccine when the gunfire blasted from the nearby hills.“It happened so suddenly. There was so much gunfire it felt like an explosion,” he said, recalling details of the attack five years ago in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region near the Afghan border.A bullet shattered his thigh and he fell to the ground. His childhood friend and partner in the vaccination campaign, Ruhollah, lay bleeding on the ground in front of him.“I couldn’t move,” Khan said. “I watched him lying right in front of me …

The Department of Agriculture for the U.S. state of Oregon said among animals captured during wildlife surveillance near a mink farm that recently had a coronavirus outbreak, a mink believed to have recently escaped confinement tested positive for low levels of the virus known to cause COVID-19 in humans.  State officials released a statement saying recent tests confirm mink at the farm that tested positive for the virus in late November are now clear of the virus.   KOIN reports the department conducted two rounds of follow-up tests, 14 days apart, to …

The pandemic caused by the coronavirus “will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video message Sunday.The world must learn from COVID-19 and address “the intimate links between the health of humans, animals and the planet,” Tedros said in his remarks for the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.“For too long the world has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect,” he said. “We throw money at one epidemic and when it’s over, we …