The antiviral drug Avigan was developed by the firm Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in 2014, and it was later envisioned as Japan’s leading prospect to solve the global Covid pandemic. The drug was enthusiastically promoted by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but this October its development was quietly terminated.
Health equity campaigners have called for a fairer system of developing and distributing Covid medications after pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced record second-quarter revenue, more than half of which is attributable to sales of coronavirus vaccines and treatments that remain out of reach for much of the global south.
The European Union (EU) is preparing to launch its own vaccination passport system on July 1, while many other nations are considering similar initiatives.
The Covid-19 crisis became a dominating issue for the world, and Japan is no exception. This is a timeline of the events so far.
Top United Nations officials have called on nearly two hundred member nations—including the world’s wealthiest and most powerful—to help raise tens of billions of dollars in aid for poor countries facing pandemic, ongoing war, and encroaching famine in what will be a “humanitarian crisis year” in 2021.
