AWARE and AWAKE

A WHO panel "will convene next week to look at the totality of the evidence" of the effectiveness of Remdesivir The World Health Organization is preparing its guidelines on the use of the drug remdesivir to treat COVID-19, and should be able to release it in three to four weeks, the WHO's top official for clinical care responses said. "We would anticipate that the guidelines will be available within three to four weeks," Janet Diaz told a news conference. A WHO panel "will convene next week to look at the totality of the evidence" of the effectiveness of the drug, made by Gilead Sciences.

  WHO backs India & South Africa's IPR waiver proposal to WTO for Covid treatment: The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported India and South Africa’s proposal to the World Trade Organization to relax intellectual property agreements that might pose a challenge to gain access to Covid-19 vaccines. “WHO welcomes South Africa’s and India’s recent proposal to WTO to ease international and intellectual property agreements on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments & tests in order to make the tools available to all who need them at an affordable cost," WHO chief Tedros  Adhanom said in a tweet. The move gains significance as global drug makers involved in the development of Covid therapeutics have refused to give up patents over their products. Organizations such as Geneva based Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) that funds research for neglected diseases, UnitAid that invests in innovative technologies for the prevention and treatment of HIV, Malaria and Hepatiti...

  Quarantine rules are affecting travel. Now, airlines working with WHO on to replace it with Covid testing: The International Air Transport Association is working to set up a testing system that will replace compulsory quarantine to help revive the airline industry that’s been decimated by the coronavirus outbreak. IATA, which represents about 290 airlines globally, is working with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the World Health Organization to put in place scalable, affordable and fast testing systems, said Conrad Clifford, IATA’s regional vice president for Asia Pacific. “We need testing because we need to get rid of quarantines,” Clifford said in an interview on Bloomberg Television Monday. “What we’ve seen so far is if there’s a 14-day quarantine, it’s the same as closing your borders.” Clifford said IATA would “prefer to see some testing before departure and ideally, if we can find countries with similar levels of Covid risk, much like Singapore and Hong Ko...