Gambia has hired a U.S. law firm to explore legal action after a government-backed investigation found that contaminated medicines from India were “very likely” to have caused the deaths of children last year, the justice minister told Reuters.

U.S. President Joe Biden plans to select former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing three people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The FDA has approved Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, henceforth to carry the brand name Abrysvo, to prevent lower respiratory tract disease in older adults aged 60 years and above, the company announced Wednesday.

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on 17 people and entities based in China and Mexico who it accused of enabling production of counterfeit fentanyl-laced pills, as the Biden administration seeks to stem imports of the deadly drug.

Amylyx

Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Tuesday that a European regulatory panel had taken a negative view on its amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) treatment, stalling the company’s plans on introducing its first commercial drug in the region.

Philips logo

Dutch medical devices maker Philips said on Tuesday that independent tests have shown that the use of its respiratory devices involved in a major global recall did not cause health risks for patients.

The World Health Organization called for caution on Tuesday in using artificial intelligence for public healthcare, saying data used by AI to reach decisions could be biased or misused.

A panel of global health experts will meet on Thursday to decide if COVID-19 is still an emergency under the World Health Organization’s rules, a status that helps maintain international focus on the pandemic.

Denmark’s largest private health insurer Sygeforsikring Danmark, which insures roughly half the country’s population, will stop reimbursing weight loss medication from January next year due to high demand, it said on Friday.

Pfizer, COVID vaccine

Pfizer Inc. has pledged to deliver critical new medicines more quickly in low-income nations, but its first such vaccine effort faces hurdles likely to delay distribution in poorer countries by several years, global health officials told Reuters.