Podtech

The first day of September 2024 marked the first day of a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.   Conducted jointly by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), this campaign was organised in…

Pandemics like the one we experienced a few years ago are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Or so we’d like to hope.   As scientists track the development and circulation of viruses in different animals, it is becoming increasingly clear that concerns about another pandemic are not unfounded. Specifically, avian influenza viruses pose a significant risk to…

In the past few decades, living standards have improved dramatically in Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico, and their neighbours. Socioeconomic growth and development have been accompanied by improved healthcare and education. These changes are much welcome – they have improved ordinary people’s lives and ability to take care of their health and well-being.  …

Cleanrooms are an indispensable part of biopharmaceutical, medical device and other health product manufacturing. Their specialised design helps biopharma manufacturers and healthcare providers maintain controlled conditions within factories, laboratories and healthcare facilities.   Cleanrooms are not just rooms. They are an all-encompassing approach used to maintain certain environmental standards in settings where it matters the…

  The peak of the Covid-19 pandemic may have passed, but its lingering effects continue to shape global health strategies.   During the pandemic, both developed and developing countries faced significant challenges in securing essential health products, underscoring the need for self-sufficient health sectors. This crisis revealed the importance of nearshoring or localising supply chains,…

A fever, sore throat, muscle aches, and rashes or mucosal lesions on the skin. Recovery is usually spontaneous, unless an infected person has a weakened immune system, say, from untreated HIV. In severe cases, the disease can be fatal.   These symptoms and prognoses are characteristic of mpox, an outbreak of which is ravaging the…

In August 2024, of 5 reported cases of an infection in the South Indian state of Kerala, 3 resulted in fatalities. This infection, identified as amoebic meningoencephalitis or brain-eating amoeba infection, was linked to a pond filled with mossy green stagnant water,   The progression of amoebic meningoencephalitis is so swift that clinicians rarely ever…

“During Covid, we needed to manufacture new vaccines, based on a new immunisation approach, at very large scales and an unprecedented rate. Modular systems were a lifesaver. Pfizer installed some 13,000 square feet of modular rooms to rapidly scale up their capacity. With this upgrade, the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership went from producing 3-4 million vaccine doses…

“Health officials in the Florida Keys issue a dengue fever alert”   “Dengue cases in Bengaluru cross 2,000; over 9K residents tested since January 1”   “A record surge in dengue cases in Latin America spurs a warning”   “Burkina Faso: more than 350 deaths from dengue fever in a month”   “Dengue will ‘take…