Who are we Alanda is a purpose-driven organization with a mission to help build a healthier and more equitable world through a focus on evidence and targeting barriers in access to health. We are committed to driving positive change in the health sector through strategic projects and collaborative innovation. We are a small international team …
We’re so tired… of the never ending waves of COVID-19, of the public health restrictions. We want our old lives back. Those at the forefront of the response are the most exhausted. Healthcare workers are having to witness and deal with the increasing stream of COVID-19 patients, when we had started hoping that this would …
The delta variant is causing a new wave: are our vaccines still working? Read More »
By Tinnie Louie & Candela Iglesias Chiesa While some individuals have refused vaccines, at the country level, most governments have been scrambling to get vaccines to cover their populations. And yet, a tiny group of countries has (at least initially) refused opportunities to get vaccine doses. It has been well over a year since the …
Why Some Countries Have Refused the COVID19 Vaccine Read More »
Why is it taking so long to develop a vaccine against COVID19? What are all these phases and clinical trials? By Joanne Fielding and Candela Iglesias Chiesa Many scientists and researchers have hypothesized that the COVID19 pandemic will end or at least have a global downward trend when we are finally able to produce a …
Why is it taking so long to develop a vaccine against COVID19? Read More »
Covid-19 vaccine passports have recently made headlines and some countries are already planning their implementation. So what exactly are vaccine passports and what are their pros and cons?
Before COVID19, vaccine production and testing wasn’t something families discussed over the dinner table. But now, we have daily news alerts every time a pharmaceutical company passes a new hurdle towards vaccine authorization. One word we keep hearing over and over is efficacy, but what does a vaccine efficacy of 95% or 50% actually mean? …
What does “95% vaccination efficacy” really mean? Read More »
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine candidate news – what does it all mean? By Candela Iglesias Chiesa, MPH, PhD
How common are asymptomatic COVID19 infections and why is this so important? By Candela Iglesias and Joanne Fielding Since the start of the pandemic there have been ongoing discussions on whether COVID19 could cause asymptomatic infections and how often, and what role – if any – did people with asymptomatic infections play on virus transmission. …
Why do disinfectants clean the virus from surfaces and our hands, but can’t be used inside the body? By Candela Iglesias and Joanne Fielding People are feeling a bit akward about voicing this, but we’ve been hearing variants of the following: “I understand that injecting or inhaling a disinfectant is a very dangerous thing to do. But why …
Why do disinfectants clean the virus, but can’t be injected? Read More »
Understanding the difference between correlation and causation – of shark attacks and ice cream sales By Candela Iglesias and Joanne Fielding The graph above shows that there are more shark attacks when more ice cream is sold, so to stop the attacks, let’s stop eating ice cream. Sounds preposterous? It is. It is also a very useful …
The difference between correlation and causation Read More »