# health policy

A bottle label reading "Vaccine Covid-19" next to US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech logos in a picture taken on November 23, 2020. Photo: Joel Saget / AFP
A bottle label reading "Vaccine Covid-19 […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic

EU regulator defends vaccine rules as Britain OKs jab

The EU's medicines regulator insists it has the "most appropriate" method to approve a coronavirus vaccine, after Britain became the first Western country to give one the green light
2 months ago
A medical worker holds a swab as he performs a rapid "antigen" coronavirus test on a man at Villa Mafalfa clinic in Rome In this file photo taken on November 6, 2020. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli / AFP
A medical worker holds a swab as he perf […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic, Video 3D

Italy’s trailblazing rapid tests fail to halt virus

Italy was the first European country to bet big on rapid "antigen" tests, which are around 80 to 90% accurate, but they have not stopped case numbers rocketing to more than 35,000 a day
2 months ago
A medical worker puts on his personal protective equipment before working at the intensive care unit for patients infected with Covid-19 at The University Hospital Centre in Liege, Belgium, on October 22, 2020. Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard / AFP
A medical worker puts on his personal pr […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic, Video 3D

‘Trench warfare’ in Liege, Europe’s new virus front

Shell-shocked hospital staff, some of whom have tested positive for the coronavirus, are fighting a losing battle in the Belgian city of Liege against Europe's second wave of Covid-19
3 months ago
Air pollution obscures the view of the London Eye in central London on April 9, 2015. Photo: Ben Fathers / AFP
Air pollution obscures the view of the L […]
coronavirus, Environmental pollution, Health, Infographic, Video 3D

Air pollution costs Europe’s cities 160bn euros a year: analysis

Air pollution costs inhabitants of European cities more than 160 billion euros ($190 billion) each year due to long- and short-term health impacts, a group of environmental and social watchdogs say
3 months ago
A gravedigger wears protective clothing at the Recanto da Paz Municipal Cemetery during the burial of a victim of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, in the city of Breves, southwest of Marajo Island, an island at the mouth of the Amazon River in the Brazilian state of Para, on May 30, 2020. - The pandemic is spreading across Brazil under a cloud of confrontation, as governors and mayors implement restrictive measures while President Jair Bolsonaro, who has pinned his hopes of re-election on a booming economy, has berated them for imposing what he calls "the tyranny of total quarantine." (Photo by Tarso SARRAF / AFP)
A gravedigger wears protective clothing […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic, Video, Video 3D

Outside Europe, nations floundering in virus’ first wave

As Europe begins its cautious reopening after weathering the pandemic's first wave in lockdown, many developing countries continue to be battered by skyrocketing numbers of COVID-19 cases
7 months ago
Moroccan Mustapha Moulay (R) prays with the president of Milan's Islamic Centre, Gueddouda Boubakeur (C), next to the grave of Moulay's wife, who died from COVID-19, in the Muslim section of a largely Roman Catholic cemetery of Bruzzano on the outskirts of Milan on June 5, 2020. Photo: Miguel Medina / AFP
Moroccan Mustapha Moulay (R) prays with […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic

For Italy’s Muslims, lack of burial space deepens grief in pandemic

Italy's Muslim community, like others, suffered many deaths as the coronavirus pandemic hit the country hard, but compounding their pain has been the lack of space to bury their dead
7 months ago
Unikinon chloroquine pills are seen in packaging at the Uni-pharma pharmaceutical company in a northern suburb of Athens, on June 5, 2020, where chloroquine pills are produced. - The company was able to activate an old license to manufacture this controversial drug, which in the 1990s was exported to Africa for the treatment of malaria. Despite the controversy, production and trials of chloroquine are carried on. The scientific community and public opinion are reeling from the withdrawal of the disputed study in the journal The Lancet on the use of chloroquine. But in Greece, where the manufacture of this drug resumed during the pandemic, the controversy is almost non-existent. (Photo by Louisa GOULIAMAKI / AFP)
Unikinon chloroquine pills are seen in p […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic, Video, Video 3D

Amid global controversy, Greece moves forward with chloroquine

Seemingly unaffected by the controversy in the global scientific community, Greece has resumed production of chloroquine to treat cases of coronavirus and is conducting clinical trials
7 months ago
Callers attempt to establish who the patients spent time with — and may have infected — during the two days before their symptoms emerged. Photo: Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Callers attempt to establish who the pat […]
coronavirus, Health, Infographic, Video, Video 3D

Belgium’s new profession, the Virus Tracker

With Belgian leaders still debating how to set-up and deploy a coronavirus tracing smartphone app, authorities have set up old-fashioned call centres to interview the infected
8 months ago
Doctor Michael Grosse takes a sample from a driver through a car window at a drive-through testing point for the coronavirus in Halle, eastern Germany, on March 27, 2020. Photo: Ronny Hartmann / AFP
Doctor Michael Grosse takes a sample fro […]
coronavirus, Digitalization, Health, Infographic, Video

Germany bets on S. Korean model in virus fightback

In the race against the coronavirus, Germany is betting on widespread testing and quarantining to break the infection chain, a strategy borrowed from South Korea
10 months ago