💊 Philips lays off 10,000; Sanofi says bye to people in India; Argentina gets a cannabis regulator

#266 | Faith in pharma goes down; Sichuan tells the unmarried to go to town; Thought of the next pandemic makes the IFRC frown

Hello, and welcome back to a fully-loaded Kable. A Kable so loaded we might need another edition tomorrow.

First up, the Indian government has released a roadmap for the elimination of leprosy, one limb at a time. 

The news about layoffs continues with Philips adding 6,000 cuts to the 4,000 they'd previously announced. Last year's mass recalls of its respiratory devices wouldn't have helped.

Not to be left behind, Sanofi is offloading a bunch of vaccine workers at two plants in India.

In Egypt, Sandoz has inked an OTC distribution pact with Ibnsina Pharma, and a new mRNA vaccines and biologics factory gets going.

In Nigeria, a medical association portends a dire future with not a single doctor left in the country soon.

In the US, the FDA recently asked for a new agency to regulate cannabis. Argentina, however, has already gone ahead and launched one called ARICCAME.

In Indonesia, authorities say a local trader forged ingredient labels leading to cough syrup-induced deaths in the country.

Good news for the Amazon has been in short supply lately. It is not, however, totally absent, with Germany pledging $222 million to help the Brazilian environment.

In more good news for the environment, UAE airline Emirates just carried out its first test flight on sustainable fuel.

Decades of population control measures have left China with an ageing population that has relinquished its spot at the top of the population pyramid. As a sign of how much the times have changed, the Sichuan region has allowed unmarried people to legally have children.

And finally, a clutch of Covid-related news to sign off with. The US is looking to end its Covid emergencies on May 11. South Korea became the latest country to drop indoor mask mandates. The WHO says Covid is still an emergency, but it is nearing an 'inflection' point.