Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari shows his COVID-19 certificate after receiving his first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in March 2021.
Photo by Kola Sulaimon / AFP via Getty Images
Experts assess Nigeria’s response to COVID-19 so far and express worry that the country does not appear to have learnt much; it isn’t prepared for the next pandemic.
Would anyone want to spend more screen time talking about pandemics? Yes, learned an anthropologist, biologist and historian who developed a course on the topic.
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The course offers a model for teaching about complex problems, and underlines the critical role of university learning, research and outreach in understanding and addressing them.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan.
Johannes Eisele/AFP
The lab accident theory of the origins of Covid-19 has gained traction in recent months. We need a proper investigation to find out what really happened.
Sustained surveillance for disease outbreaks at global hot spots may be the key to preventing the next pandemic.
MR.Cole_Photographer/Getty Images
A more coordinated effort by scientists, stakeholders and community members will be required to stop the next deadly virus that’s already circulating in our midst.
This giant effigy of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is intended to be burned as part of the Holika Dahan, during which the demon Holika is led to the stake on the eve of the Holi celebrations, a popular Hindu festival.
Sujit Jaiswal/AFP
In 1959, three armed men broke into the University of Montréal and stole the whole supply of polio vaccine — 75,000 vials valued at $50,000. What have we learned from this event?
A swarm of bats flies out of a cave near Phnom Sampeau, Cambodia.
S. Shankar/Wikipedia
A bat virus discovered a decade ago in Cambodia indicates that pangolin trafficking remains a credible explanation for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Albanian health department workers, wearing protective suits, collect chickens, in the village of Peze Helmes some 20 km from the capital Tirana, 23 March 2006, after the second case of H5N1 bird flu was discovered in Albania.
Gent Shkullaku / AFP
Ever since the 2001 SARS outbreak and H5N1 avian flu in 2003, we’ve developed tools to monitor diseases that transmitted from animals to humans. But what does a large-scale roll-out entail?
Ever since a 1904 revolt against the smallpox vaccine, Brazil has run extremely successful vaccination programs.
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
A 1904 revolt against mandatory smallpox inoculation taught Brazilian health officials a deadly lesson on how to vaccinate a skeptical public. Today President Bolsonaro seems to ignore that history.
Transmission electron micrograph of particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus at the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is one ten-thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. How can such a microscopic organism have such an immense impact on global health?
On October 22, the French junior minister for digital transition and electronic communication, Cedric O, and the French prime minister, Jean Castex (rear) announcing the changeover of several departments to ‘maximum alert’, new curfew measures, and the new app ‘Tous Anti Covid’.
Ludovic Marin/AFP
In the current pandemic, finding the right balance between the protection of public health and respecting civil liberties has proven to be supremely difficult.
The English believed God communicated through plague – and viewed the epidemic which decimated Algonquian territory between 1616-19 as a sign.
John Eliot Preaching to the Indians, Gift of Martha J. Fleischman and Barbara G. Fleischman, 1999, The Met
Irrational behaviour during difficult circumstances is rooted in deeper cognitive and evolutionary psychological mechanisms. Many reflect what are called emergency decision and purchasing contexts.
A traveler walks past screeners testing a system of thermal imaging cameras which check body temperatures at Los Angeles International Airport on June. 24, 2020.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
The US response to the coronavirus was slow and problematic, but it also was rooted in a 19th-century way of viewing public health.
Cylinder seal (left) and modern impression (right) showing two people drinking beer through long straws. Khafajeh, Iraq (Early Dynastic period, c. 2600–2350 B.C.).
Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Beer was extremely popular in ancient Mesopotamia. Sipped through straws, it differed from today’s beer and was enjoyed by people from all walks of life.
The arrival of flu season will put more pressure on hospitals already facing the coronavirus pandemic.
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Pandemic policy experts offer 10 recommendations that could reduce the risk that a bad flu season on top of the COVID-19 pandemic will overwhelm hospitals.
Ontario schools plan to reopen after being closed since March 14, 2020.
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The coronavirus pandemic isn’t the first time an illness has disrupted schooling. In 1937, Toronto schools delayed re-opening for six weeks in response to the polio epidemic.
Honorary Professor Faculty of Health and Medical Science, Univeristy of Sydney; Senior Researcher Sydney Institue for Infectious Disease, University of Sydney., University of Sydney
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney