Facts in Q&A format

The WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) is a procedure for assessing unlicensed vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnostics during public health emergencies with the ultimate goal of expediting the availability of these products to people who need them. The assessment weighs the threat posed by the ...

All available Covid-19 vaccines have been assessed for safety and have also been found not to interfere with the human Deoxyribonucleic (DNA) so it does not reduce a person’s life span. ...

Yes. A Covid-19 viral test looks for the virus in your breathing passages. There are different types of viral tests. One type looks for genetic material from the virus. This is usually called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Another type looks for proteins on the virus. This is usually called an ant...

Temporary hair loss is normal after a fever or illness and fever is a common symptom of Covid-19. A few months after having a high fever or recovering from an illness, many people see noticeable hair loss. While many people think of this as hair loss, it’s actually hair shedding. The medical na...

Covid-19 spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets. Respiratory droplets travel into the air when you cough, sneeze, talk, shout or sing. These droplets can then land in the mouths or noses of people who are near you or they may breathe these droplets in. Masks are a simple b...

Clinical trials in Africa are notoriously low. The African Academy of Science estimates that only 2% of clinical trials conducted worldwide take place in Africa. South Africa became the first country on the continent to start a clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The candidate vaccine (Ox1Cov-1...

As the evidence currently suggests, there is limited risk that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted via human milk. Consequently, the World Health Organization and other organisations (including Unicef, CDC, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) recommend that mothers continue to breas...

In a statement issued on 4 January 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted patients and health care providers of the risk of false results, particularly false-negative results –a test that says you don’t have the virus when you actually do have the virus –with the C...

5G, or fifth generation, is the latest wireless mobile phone technology, first widely deployed in 2019. 5G is expected to increase performance and a wide range of new applications, including strengthening e-Health (telemedicine, remote surveillance, telesurgery). Claims that 5G somehow causes or ...