💊 Moderna reports positive news from PA trials; New Covid vaccine trials in China; Death toll from the pandemic? 337 million

The IPSN makes a debut; WOAH says vaccinate all birds; Africa is the nursery of civilisation

Hello, and welcome back to a new week with a light and not-at-all-frothy Kable. The WHO is celebrating its 75th anniversary at its Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly in Geneva. What odds on meaningless proclamations at the end of it?

In more meaningful news, Moderna is reporting ‘encouraging’ early data for one of its rare disease medicines. The company's first mRNA protein replacement therapy for Propionic Acidemia (PA), a rare inherited metabolic disorder, saw trial participants experience a 66% overall relative risk reduction in the frequency of life-threatening events.

China has approved not one but two Covid vaccine trials against the most recent circulating XBB variants.

One more death and more cases of vision loss have been reported from the US, linked to tainted eyedrops.

The ongoing cholera outbreak in South Africa has claimed 10 more lives.

Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma is exploring opportunities for a vaccine technology transfer with the Republic of Ghana, intending to aid Ghana in enhancing its vaccine storage, production, and distribution. This collaborative move is prompted by Ghana's recently founded National Vaccine Institution, which aims to develop an independent vaccine production policy direction and is faced with the challenge of vaccinating about 33 million citizens amid negative rumours about immunisation.

And finally, a cow from Tennessee tested positive for atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known commonly as mad cow disease, at a beef processing plant in South Carolina, US.