Sydney Morning Herald: Australian COVID vaccine terminated due to HIV ‘false positives’ “A billion-dollar deal for the Morrison government to buy more than 50 million doses of the University of Queensland’s potential coronavirus vaccine has been abruptly terminated after several trial participants returned false positive HIV test results…” (Harris, 12/11).…

The Guardian: Heart disease, cancer and diabetes were biggest killers of 2019, says WHO “Noncommunicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes are now the leading causes of death in the world, in a dramatic change from two decades ago. They now make up seven of the top 10 causes of…

AP: South Africa sees sharp rise in virus, part of African wave (Magome, 12/10). Borgen Magazine: Dr. Joseph Hogan on Pooled Testing for HIV/AIDS (Hogan, 12/9). Devex: What should change after COVID-19, according to the stars of Netflix’s ‘Pandemic’ series (Ravelo, 12/10). Devex: U.K. Parliament’s International Development Committee saved (Worley,…

CIDRAP News: Global cases stabilizing, but COVID deaths continue to climb “Global incidence of new COVID-19 cases remained high but stable for the second week in a row, while global coronavirus deaths increased, according to the latest weekly epidemiologic update from the World Health Organization (WHO). … The WHO update…

Global Citizen: Countries Around the World Need to Prioritize Policy Change to Tackle HIV: Report Khanyi Mlaba, writer and editor at Global Citizen, discusses findings from a recently released HIV Policy Lab report “that details how different countries’ HIV policies compare to the international standard.” Mlaba writes, “The HIV Policy…

New York Times: China Peddles Falsehoods to Obscure Origin of Covid Pandemic “…Facing global anger over their initial mishandling of the outbreak, the Chinese authorities are now trying to rewrite the narrative of the pandemic by pushing theories that the virus originated outside China. In recent days, Chinese officials have…

CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report”: Sex Differences in HIV Testing — 20 PEPFAR-Supported Sub-Saharan African Countries, 2019 Bakary Drammeh of the Division of Global HIV & TB at the Center for Global Health at CDC and colleagues discuss sex differences in HIV testing across 20 PEPFAR-supported sub-Saharan African countries…

AP: China testing blunders stemmed from secret deals with firms “Secrecy and cronyism at China’s top disease control agency led to widespread test shortages and flaws that hampered the early response to the coronavirus outbreak, an Associated Press investigation has found. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention gave test…

The Hill: U.S. reports 3,100 COVID-19 deaths in one day, surpassing previous record by 20 percent “The U.S. saw its highest single-day coronavirus death toll to date on Wednesday with 3,157. The number was 20 percent higher than the previous single-day high of 2,603 on April 15, and brings the…

AP: CDC to shorten COVID-19 quarantine to 10 days, 7 with test “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to shorten the recommended length of quarantine after exposure to someone who is positive for COVID-19, as the virus rages across the nation. According to a senior administration official,…