New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday the country will end its strict COVID-19 lockdown once 90% of its citizens are fully vaccinated.  The nation of 5 million people has been among the best in the world at containing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, largely because New Zealand closed its borders for most of the last 18 months to non-residents.  The strategy to eliminate COVID-19 worked for the most part, with the nation reporting only 28 deaths over the course of the pandemic. Earlier this year, much of the country had all but returned to normal.  But in August, the Delta variant of the virus prompted an outbreak in the nation’s largest …

Uganda has kickstarted a trial for the injectable HIV drugs cabotegravir and rilpivirine. Researchers and those living with HIV say the trial will likely end pill fatigue, fight stigma, improve adherence and ensure patients get the right dosage. The two drugs have been in use as tablets. The World Health Organization last year licensed their use as injectables. While the two injectables already went through trials in Europe and North America, this will be the first time they are tested in an African population for efficacy and safety in an African health care system. Uganda is one of …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday recommended booster shots for millions who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines, and said the booster does not necessarily have to match the original shot. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the government agency, OK’d the recommendations by an advisory panel Thursday, putting the CDC on the same page as the Food and Drug Administration. The booster shot for Pfizer vaccine was approved in September. The CDC committee has recommended that people age 18 and older and who were …

After a day of high-level talks in Colombia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Thursday a regional partnership to address deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. “We’ll give much-needed financial assistance to help manage protected areas and Indigenous territories, and we’ll help scale up low-carbon agricultural practices to farmers throughout the Amazon,” he said in the capital, Bogota, after touring its botanical gardens. “This new regional partnership will help prevent up to 19 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere while capturing another 52,000 metric tons …