Any notion that COVID-19 was going to last for just a few months was very much misplaced in 2020. Especially after it was recognised that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was largely spread through the airborne route, all indications were that it would cause repeat bouts of waves. This is what happened in the flu epidemic of 1918. In addition very few scientists predicted that we would see the type of mutations that occurred over such a short period of time....

Germany's continued obstruction of the TRIPS waiver "means more people will die when they could have been saved if they had access to life-saving vaccines." When German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday for a White House summit to discuss "ending the Covid-19 pandemic," she was greeted outside by a giant puppet of herself alongside dozens of body bags, symbolizing the victims of Germany's ongoing obstruction o...

We will never end the death and destruction of COVID-19 until we get real about vaccine equity. In a month of high-level meetings from the G7 to the World Health Assembly, we have seen a lot of rhetoric from the global north, and a lot of frustration and urgency from the global south, but still no substantial changes on how to get the world vaccinated. Vaccines offer an incredible opportunity for science to outpace the virus, but now we are seein...

"We can choose to transform this moment into an opportunity to learn from our recent tragic mistakes... We can choose to invest in prevention." More than a year into the pandemic that's still raging across much of the world, an independent task force of scientists said government leaders are doing far too little to stop future pandemics at their source by ending the exploitation and destruction of nature. The task force was convened by Harvard Gl...

A new short film featuring climate action leader Greta Thunberg highlights the connections between the climate crisis, ecological emergency, and the Covid-19 pandemic as well as other public health crises that are likely to arise from humans' exploitation of animals—and explains how communities and policymakers can repair people's relationship to wildlife while radically changing our food systems. "For Nature," conceived of by Thunberg and produc...

Food security is a growing concern globally, with two billion people being subject to moderate to severe food insecurity in 2019 according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food security consists of four interconnected pillars: food availability (how much is produced), food access (can people afford food), food use (how is food prepared and consumed) and stability (how stable is the food supply and consumption). Large-scal...

The world has a COVID-19 vaccine access problem: Almost half of all doses administered so far have been in Europe and North America, while many poorer countries have vaccinated less than than 1% of their populations. With new coronavirus variants raising the health risk, South Africa and India have proposed that the World Trade Organization temporarily waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines to help ramp up production. The U.S., ...

Three years ago South Africa introduced Africa's first major tax on sugar-sweetened beverages based on grams of sugar. The tax now stands at about 11% of the price per litre. We assessed the impact in recently published research. We found that the health promotion levy coincided with large reductions in purchases of taxable beverages, in terms of both volume and sugar quantities. We didn't find significant changes for non-taxable beverages. This ...

Plastic pollution is a growing global concern. Large pieces of plastic have been found almost everywhere on Earth, from the most visited beaches to remote, uninhabited islands. Because wildlife are regularly exposed to plastic pollution, we often ask what effects plastics have on the animals. Over time, macroplastics (plastic debris larger than five millimetres in size) break up into tiny particles called microplastics (smaller than five millimet...

Human activity is to blame for COVID-19, say 22 international experts.But we can prevent future pandemics by better protecting Earth's natural resources.There are 1.7 million 'undiscovered' viruses in mammals and birds, 827,000 of which could infect humans.But it's not too late to change course and rebuild our defences.Experts say switching our efforts to prevention would reduce the threat. Here's the good news: we can prevent future pandemics. B...