While Argentina-born Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara would be 93 on 14 June 2021, the island is finalising testing its domestically made anti-coronavirus vaccines as the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight. Latin America experts have shed light on how Che and Fidel laid the ground for Cuba's healthcare and biotech development. Cuba's biotechnological industry is gainin [...]

The majority of Russians believe they haven’t yet had Covid-19, new research reveals, but more than half of people say they aren’t actually worried about catching the virus and far fewer say they’ve signed up for a vaccine so far. That’s according to a new survey conducted by Moscow’s Levada Center, a pollster registered as a foreign agent by Russia’s Justice Ministry over links to [...]

Sleep researchers have, for the first time, observed the human mind consolidating and storing memories in incredible detail, in real time, reinforcing existing ideas about the function and importance of sleep to human cognition. For decades, there has been a strong but poorly understood connection between sleep and the formation and solidification of memory in the human brain. In a recent s [...]

About 60% of Germans would like to get vaccinated with the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine if they were presented with such an opportunity, a fresh poll has shown. The survey, conducted by the pollster Forsa, was commissioned by the German Eastern Business Association, a group focusing on economic cooperation between Germany and countries located in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as [...]

Capitalism has made us cruel. My brother just tested positive for Covid. He can’t smell or taste anything. He feels exhausted. He got it from work. It’s the only place he’s gone for the last year— no friends, no dating, no social life. They wouldn’t give him time off to get vaccinated. They’ve dumped overtime on him for the last month, and they never tell him his schedule more than [...]

Those of us who put forward an alternative view to the prevailing orthodoxy on the virus or on vaccinations are being vilified, threatened and cancelled. This is not how science, or a functioning democracy, works. I haven’t written for a while, sorry. Instead, I have been sorting out two complaints about my writing made to the General Medical Council (GMC). Also, a complaint from NHS England, an [...]

With the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing almost 3 million deaths worldwide, researchers have been scrambling to learn more about the deadly COVID-19 disease that has threatened global public health and world economies. A new study, published on preprint server bioRxiv last week, suggests that a cannabis plant compound inhibited infection with SARS-CoV-2 in human lung cells. [...]

San Marino, a tiny landlocked state, surprised many of its European neighbours when it began easing anti-COVID restrictions in mid-April, several months after it stocked up on Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. It may be one of Europe’s smallest states, but it’s winning the COVID battle thanks to Russia’s vaccine. The country, which has a population of 34,000, has seen coronavirus cas [...]

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating reports of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, as the pharmaceutical company remains embroiled in controversy over the jab’s link to blood clotting. In a meeting this week, the European Medicines Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) revealed that it was “assessing reports” of [...]

India has received its first batch of the Russian-made Sputnik V jab. Heavily hit by a new wave of Covid-19 infections, the country has expanded its vaccination drive in a bid to inoculate its entire adult population. An aircraft carrying the vaccines touched down in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday. “First batch of Sputnik V vaccine arrives in Hyderabad, India! That's t [...]

VIENNA - Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober announced on Tuesday his intention to step down from the ministerial post due to health problems and exhaustion from combating the coronavirus pandemic. The 60-year-old recently had to take sick leave twice due to blood circulation problems. "After consultations with my doctors, I decided to step down from my duties as minister of social [...]

Australia has declined to purchase a vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson, because its mechanism is similar to the one used in AstraZeneca’s jab. Both vaccines are currently being investigated for links to blood clots. The Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine is “an adenovirus vaccine, the same type of vaccine as the AstraZeneca vaccine,” a spokesperson for Australian Health Minis [...]

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has “a lot of good scientific data” behind it, the head of Germany’s Bionorica SE pharmaceutical company, Michael Popp, told RT, as he shared his company’s experience working with Russian specialists. Russian researchers have a lot of experience and expertise in vaccine development,” said the CEO of the German-based international company, which calls itse [...]

Austria is to order a million doses of Russia's Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, one month after a successful phone call between Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the Kremlin. It will be the third EU country to receive the formula. The news came from the chancellor himself, who revealed that Vienna and Moscow are engaged in talks, and said a deal should be agreed soon. On Tuesday, Kurz explained th [...]

Drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech wanted to charge the EU Commission €54.08 per dose of their Coronavirus vaccine, according to German media reports. The jab would have cost more than 20 times that of a rival shot from AstraZeneca. The prospective price tag was revealed on Thursday by German broadcasters NDR and WDR, and the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. The paper claims that Pfizer and Bio [...]

Once again, the world has failed to unite when faced with a common threat. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic proves that much of the West, especially the US, is committed to bloc politics, no matter the real-world human cost. It was revealed in the annual report of the US Department of Health and Human Services that the US government worked towards convincing Brazil to reject Russia’s Spu [...]

Holidays abroad might have been an early casualty of Covid-19 lockdowns, but Russia is betting that wanderlust has only grown, and plans to make it easier for tourists to take a long trip round the world’s largest country. Under the rule change, adopted by the national parliament in its first reading on Wednesday, visas for sightseers can be issued for up to six months, and can be granted s [...]

Covid-19 jabs are being distributed unevenly between EU member states, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, pointing to “secret contracts” signed at a “vaccine bazaar” with big pharma by the bloc’s vaccination steering board. “Deliveries are not happening in line with population,” Kurz told a press conference organized at short notice on Friday. He added that the situation [...]

Austria launched its vaccination effort in December, offering citizens inoculations with Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, or AstraZeneca. Certain Austrian firms are also negotiating with Russia on Sputnik V production, according to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, one of the vaccine's promoters abroad. Austria's top infectologist, Professor Florian Thalhammer, believes that the ef [...]

MOSCOW - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says he is ready to get vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine or the Chinese vaccine, if they are approved by the EU. "Yes [I am ready to get vaccinated], if the vaccines [Russia’s and China’s] are approved in Europe," Kurz said in an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper. The chancellor said that Austria [...]

Brussels’ beleaguered coronavirus vaccination program could be poised to get a shot in the arm as the EU’s central regulator completes its initial stage in appraising Sputnik V, the vaccine developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Center. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) told Russian media on Tuesday that the scientific consultation process was now finalized. “As a next step, the company ca [...]

GENOA, Italy - The report in the medical journal The Lancet on the safety and efficacy of the Russian vaccine against the novel coronavirus has put Sputnik V among the world's top vaccines, David Livermore, a member of the scientific advisory board on Sputnik V, said in an interview with Sputnik. On Tuesday, peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet published an interim analysis from the [...]