💉Ebola keeps breaking records every day; Biovac gets more funding; Hope for long Covid?
#615 | The WHO wants to make all your pills green; Mosquitoes are evergreen; Internet lovers are heard, not seen
Hello, and welcome back to The Kable, where we’re happy to report that we have a very light (as in short) issue for you today.
Beginning, as we’ve been for two months now, with Congo and Ebola where the outbreak is already the second-largest Ebola outbreak, exceeding 1,000 deaths in less than a quarter of the time that the worst outbreak, in 2014-2016 in West Africa, took. At last count, the official tally from Congolese health authorities stood at 3360 cases, with 1487 deaths. Which was an increase of nearly 100 cases and exactly 50 deaths from a day before. The 2018-2020 outbreak was so far Congo’s worst outbreak with a little over 3,400 reported cases. At the rate at which this outbreak is growing, by the time you read this, we’re pretty certain that number will be left way behind. Unsurprisingly, a hunger crisis is exploding in eastern Congo too. Unfortunately, so is sexual violence. And, in what might answer how this outbreak grew so large so quickly, an analysis by on-ground researchers says the outbreak likely began at least four months before it was first reported. There are some positive developments, however. CEPI has partnered with Singapore’s Hilleman Laboratories to make doses of another experimental vaccine against the Bundibugyo virus. And over in Uganda, after 42 days of no new cases, they’ve declared the outbreak over.
Meanwhile, in spite of a court-ordered ban and public outcry, it seems Kenya has been quarantining Americans exposed to Ebola in Congo.
It’s been another busy week of it for the Africa CDC. Apart from leading the continental response to Ebola, the agency partnered with Population Services International (PSI) to expand access to immunisation and integrated primary healthcare services across Africa. One of the primary aims of this partnership is to further Pharmacy-Based Immunisation Delivery (PBID) models to expand access to vaccination and preventive health services through community-based platforms across Africa. The Africa CDC also released a strategy document on wastewater surveillance, which honestly is the best early-warning system any public health agency could ask for.
Speaking of Africa, the African Medicines Agency has been on a flurry of activity recently. Health Policy Watch got an interview with Dr Delese Mimi Darko, the Director General of the agency, to talk about how the agency will harmonise regulations across the continent, among other things.
In excellent news, AfDB signed a $15 million agreement with Biovac to expand their upcoming vaccine manufacturing plant in Cape Town. This deal will expand the plant’s capacity to 500 million doses annually, and we expect a large part of that to be allocated to cholera vaccines.
There are a few updates from the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026), held in Brazil this week. Let’s lead with the good news first. Merck-MSD has announced voluntary licensing agreements with seven manufacturers, including three from Africa, for an investigational once-monthly oral HIV PrEP candidate it is developing. The three African drugmakers are South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare, Universal Corporation from Kenya, and, of course, Quality Chemicals in Uganda. That was pretty much the only good news. The bad news is the continued lack of access to lenacapavir, (no) thanks to Gilead. Brazil, one of the countries where the drug was tested, still doesn’t have it, and they had things to say about it.
Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa separately approved ​five new injectable GLP-1 drugs for diabetes ‌and obesity treatment.
Elsewhere, the International Criminal Court (ICC) dismissed its chief prosecutor Karim Khan for sexual misconduct. Not at all because he issued, and was pursuing, arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and other war criminals.
In India, at a conference called the Global Drug Regulatory Conclave, Indian regulators said they’ve taken action against 90% of high-risk pharma facilities, in the wake of many incidents linked to spurious drugs made in India. At the same conference, India’s health minister said India is building a future-ready drug regulatory framework. And it will be powered by AI.
The US has finally unfrozen the $600 million funding to Gavi that it had frozen last year. But Gavi has still been asked to move away from vaccines that use thimerosal, because the US health department is now led by a flailing content creator.
In Australia, seven new cases of bird flu were reported in birds, followed by confirmation that it is now spreading in native species too.
And finally, can long Covid be prevented? We don’t yet know but a study with two drugs holds promise. One of the drugs is Paxlovid, and the other one, unsurprisingly, is metformin. Is there anything metformin isn’t useful for?
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Stories Of The Week
Nothing compares to these blue and yellow green green pills. Pretty much all over the world, for products of all kinds, their carbon footprint has been making it to the news as much as their efficiency or lack thereof. With medicine, however, the carbon footprint has rarely made it onto the prescription label. There has been increasing talk in this space and now, regulators may start paying more attention. Because the WHO has launched the first global framework to help regulators support lower carbon pharmaceutical manufacturing without compromising quality, safety, efficacy or access.
Rather than rewriting the rulebook, the framework focuses on using existing regulatory levers – standards, scientific guidance, reliance pathways and digital tools – to accelerate greener technologies across the pharma lifecycle. Whether regulators move as quickly as the climate demands is another question. But the days when environmental performance sat outside medicines regulation are looking increasingly numbered.
(WHO)
Bottom line
The age of the mosquito. And honestly, when has it not been the age of the mosquito? Even during the Jurassic age, we’re pretty sure mosquitoes ruled. Can you even imagine a T-Rex trying to swat a mosquito, with those arms? Anyhoo, here is Nature with four charts showing how mosquitoes still rule. Malaria, dengue, mosquito migration, climate change are the charts. And mosquitoes are top of the pops on all of them.
(Nature)
Long reads
Planning ahead. After a series of COPs with all talk and no action, COP32 makes its way to Ethiopia next year. And this piece breaks down how Ethiopia can, for a change, make a COP summit meaningful. TL;DR: do all the work beforehand.
(The Conversation)
Waiter, there’s a drug in my water. Rivers and water systems in general around the world have become carriers of drug remnants, fuelling the global rise of antibiotic resistance. Things are no different in South Africa.
(The Conversation)
And finally, not strictly the kind of piece we would cover in The Kable. But this investigation by The Namibian about young Namibians recruited to become lovers on the internet is fascinating reading.
(The Namibian)