West Africa has become a hotspot for pharmaceutical trafficking, according to a Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crimereport, with up to 80% of Burkina Faso and Guinea’s medical products in particular believed to have been smuggled in by criminals.

Brazil will suspend its US$324 million contract for India’s Covaxin COVID-19 vaccine upon the recommendation of Brazil’s Comptroller General office (CGU), Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Tuesday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected accusations that it covered up a report critical of Italy’s COVID-19 response, despite warnings from one of the authors that burying it could cause a “scandal of huge proportion” that would damage the agency’s credibility.