News at a glance: AI rules for Europe, vaccines for Africa, and a union for NIH early-career researchers

HEALTH EQUITY A billion-dollar boost for vaccinemaking in Africa Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has committed up to $1 billion to bolster Africa’s ability to sustainably produce its own doses of lifesaving vaccines. Manufacturers based in Africa produce only 1% of the vaccine doses used on the continent. Last week, Gavi announced that with money left over from the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility—an effort to provide an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines—it would create the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA) to focus on preventing 11 priority infectious diseases. As an incentive to begin making the doses, AVMA will give a manufacturer $10 million to $25 million for each vaccine that the World Health Organization determines meets international quality standards. If Gavi and its partner, UNICEF, agree to buy the vaccine, AVMA will “top up” the price paid by as much as 50 cents extra per dose as an “accelerator payment.” Its goal is to help at least four African manufacturers supply a total of more than 800 million doses over a decade. REGULATION EU agrees to landmark AI rules After marathon negotiations, the European Union’s three main governing bodies last week approved a comprehensive new law governing the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems across the bloc. The world’s first enacted legislation of its kind, the measure bans certain application...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news