We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:
The European Union has threatened to impose tight controls on the export of coronavirus vaccines made in the bloc, potentially impacting the UK’s supply of Pfizer jabs.
The UK government said it was in “close contact” with suppliers after the European Commission issued the warning amid a row with AstraZeneca over a shortfall of doses for member states.
Facing criticism of a slow rollout in the EU, the European Commission threatened to impose controls on vaccines that would affect the Belgium-manufactured Pfizer vaccine.
European health commissioner Stella Kyriakides accused pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which worked with Oxford University on the vaccine’s development, of failing to give a valid explanation for failing to deliver doses to the bloc.
Warning the EU “will take any action required to protect its citizens and rights”, she said in a broadcast address that an “export transparency mechanism” will be installed “as soon as possible”.
“In the future, all companies producing vaccines against Covid-19 in the EU will have to provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries,” she said.
But the UK government remained confident that vaccine supply will ensure it meets its first target.
A spokeswoman said: “We remain in close contact with all of our vaccine suppliers.
Our vaccine supply and scheduled deliveries will fully support offering the first dose to all four priority groups by February 15.”
Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa has described her extended period of quarantine ahead of the Australia Open following a positive Covid-19 test as the worst moment of her career, adding she felt abandoned by organisers.
Badosa, ranked 67 in the world, was the first player to test positive for the virus upon arrival in Australia ahead of the tournament and cannot leave her hotel room until 31 January.
A new Brazilian variant of the coronavirus has made its first known appearance in the US in a person who recently returned to Minnesota after traveling to Brazil, state health officials announced.
The Brazil P.1 variant was found in a specimen from a patient who lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who became ill in the first week of January, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement.
Epidemiologists are interviewing the person to obtain more details about their illness, travel and contacts.
There was no immediate indication that the variant was spreading in Minnesota.
State Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said the new finding underscores the importance of testing as well as continued efforts to limit the spread of the disease.
We know that even as we work hard to defeat Covid -19, the virus continues to evolve as all viruses do,” Malcolm said in a statement.
“That’s yet another reason why we want to limit Covid -19 transmission the fewer people who get Covid -19, the fewer opportunities the virus has to evolve.
“The good news is that we can slow the spread of this variant and all Covid-19 variants by using the tried-and-true prevention methods of wearing masks, keeping social distance, staying home when sick, and getting tested when appropriate.”
AstraZeneca has denied its Covid-19 vaccine is not very effective for people over 65, after German media reports said officials fear the vaccine may not be approved in the European Union for use in the elderly, Reuters reports.
German daily papers Handelsblatt and Bild said in separate reports the vaccine – co-developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University – had an efficacy of 8% or less than 10%, respectively, in those over 65.
German officials were concerned that the vaccine may not receive approval from the EU’s medicines authority EMA for use in those over 65, Bild reported online.
The reports mark another potential issue for AstraZeneca, which told the EU on Friday it could not meet agreed supply targets up to the end of March after running into vaccine production problems.
Frustration was already growing among European countries because Pfizer and partner BioNTech announced a temporary slowdown in vaccine supplies earlier in January.
AstraZeneca described the German media reports saying its vaccine was shown to have a very low efficacy in the elderly as “completely incorrect”.
It said Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation supported the vaccine’s use in the elderly.
The company added that a strong immune responses to the vaccine had been shown in blood analysis of elderly trial participants.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski has approved an investigation into health minister Eduardo Pazuello’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the northern city of Manaus, according to a court document, Reuters reports.
Lewandowski granted a petition for the probe by Attorney General Augusto Aras, and gave a period of 60 days for the probe to conclude. Pazuello has five days to give testimony to the federal police, the document shows.
Manaus, in the northern state of Amazonas, has been hit hard by a brutal second wave that has pushed the city’s emergency services to breaking point.
The city ran out of oxygen, prompting the federal government to fly in tanks from across the country in order to save people from suffocating to death.
The region is also the birthplace of a new coronavirus variant, with similar mutations to those from Britain and South Africa, that researchers believe is more transmissible.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime China skeptic, thanked Beijing on Monday for rapidly approving export of enough active ingredients to produce about 5.4 million doses of Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine being made in Sao Paulo, Reuters reports.
Bolsonaro tweeted that China has also fast-tracked approval for supplies of active ingredients to make AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil.
With few vaccines to inoculate Brazil’s 210 million people and a rampant second wave, the country now finds itself almost entirely reliant on the Sinovac vaccine that Bolsonaro, a China hawk, had previously ridiculed.
Brazil’s federally-funded Fiocruz Institute, which has a deal with AstraZeneca to produce up to 100 million doses of its vaccine, said on Monday it expects China to send the active ingredient needed to make the shots locally around February 8th.
It had previously said it could deliver finished doses in March, but now says it will await the Chinese shipment before giving a more specific time frame.
It is not possible to disclose a detailed production schedule at this time,” it said.
A troop of gorillas in a US zoo are recovering from an outbreak of Covid-19 that sickened several of the group’s eight members, the zoo said.
The gorillas began to fall ill on January 6, when two of them started coughing, the statement by San Diego Zoo Global said.
Tests conducted showed that an unknown number were infected with the virus that causes Covid-19, likely contracted after exposure to a zoo employee who was infected but asymptomatic.
The strain that infected them was “a new, highly contagious strain of the coronavirus, recently identified in California,” the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park said.
After the diagnosis, the gorillas were quarantined together at the park.
The oldest gorilla, a 48-year-old silverback named Winston, was diagnosed with pneumonia and heart disease, the zoo said.
He was treated with heart medications, antibiotics and an antibody therapy for COVID-19 that came from a supply not allowed for use in humans.
The veterinary team who treated Winston believe the antibodies may have contributed to his ability to overcome the virus,” the zoo said.
Brazil has registered 26,816 new coronavirus cases and 627 deaths, Reuters reports.
It comes as Brazilian pharmaceutical company met with health regulator Anvisa seeking approval to conduct Phase III clinical trials of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, which it plans to make in Brazil for national immunisation and for export.
União Química has previously requested emergency use authorization for the vaccine, made by Moscow Gamaleya Institute and marketed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
Anvisa requires late stage testing in Brazil to fully register the vaccine, which is already being used to inoculate people in Argentina.
“We have no doubt it will be approved. It is just a question of timing and satisfying all of Anvisa’s requirements,” said Fernando Marques, União Química’s chief executive officer and its main owner.
“By April, we expect to be producing 8 million vaccines a month,” he told reporters.
Russia is ready to deliver 10 million ready-made doses in the first quarter and can start shipping them as soon as Anvisa green-lights emergency use, Marques said.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is recovering from Covid-19 after more than a week of mild symptoms, his son said.
Slim, 80, visited the National Institute of Nutrition for clinical analysis, monitoring and treatment in a preventative manner, his son Carlos Slim Domit said, Reuters reports.
He’s very well and has had a very favorable development after more than a week of minor symptoms,” Slim Domit said.
Telecoms magnate Slim is the richest man in Mexico and among the wealthiest in the world.
US president Joe Biden said he might be able to raise to 150 million his 100-day goal of administering 100 million vaccination shots for the coronavirus.
Biden told reporters it is likely that 1 million or more shots a day will be delivered in about three weeks.
He said: “If we wear masks between now and the end of April, the experts tell us we may be able to save 50,000 lives.”
Dozens of Lebanese protesters, enraged at a nearly month-long lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus, took to the streets of the country’s second largest city on Monday and pelted security forces with stones, Reuters reports.
The security forces responded with tear gas to break up the protesters, who gathered in central Tripoli despite a strict lockdown in place since mid-January aimed at containing a major surge in infection in the small Mediterranean country.
Protesters in Tripoli were complaining that their region, the most impoverished in Lebanon, is unable to cope with the nearly month-long lockdown with little to no government assistance. The lockdown is in place until February 8.
Coronavirus infections surged in recent weeks, partially blamed on government measures to relax restrictions during the holiday seasons when tens of thousands of expat Lebanese were visiting. Hospitals have since registered near full occupancy of ICU beds and supplies were running out.
Russia will supply Mexico with 24 million doses of the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine over the next two months, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said after a phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s pledge marks a sharp increase from a previous target from last week of 7.4 million doses through March, though some doubts over Russia’s production capacity persist, Reuters reports.
Russia’s vaccine diplomacy has developed goodwill in Latin America after other pharmaceutical companies including U.S.-based Pfizer Inc announced shortfalls in distribution plans.
Lopez Obrador held the call with Putin despite announcing on Sunday that he was himself infected with Covid-19 and was being treated for mild symptoms.
- The UK will announce on Tuesday enforced quarantine for travellers arriving in the country from abroad, the broadcaster ITV reported, after prime minister Boris Johnson said that new coronavirus variants were prompting a review of border policy.
- The Italian government on Monday sent a letter of formal notice to Pfizer calling on the drug company to respect its contractual commitments over its Covid-19 vaccine deliveries, the government special commissioner said.
- Spain has recorded a record number of weekend cases, logging 93,822 infections between Friday and Monday, and 767 deaths. The latest statistics, published by the health ministry on Monday, make the last weekend the worst of the entire pandemic in terms of new cases. The number of cases of the virus per 100,ooo people over the past 14 days rose from 829 on Friday to 885 on Monday.
- Rioting broke out for a third night in Dutch cities on Monday, initially linked to protests over a government decision to add a night time curfew to the Netherlands’ already strict lockdown.
- The number of people hospitalised in France for Covid-19 rose by more than a 1,000 over the last two days, a trend unseen since November 16, and the number of patients in intensive care units for the disease exceeded 3,000 for the first time since December 9. The country’s Covid-19 death toll was up by 445, at 73,494, the world’s seventh highest, versus a rise of 172 on Sunday.
- People in Iceland will soon receive vaccination certificates that could allow them to circumvent quarantine requirements. Iceland’s Directorate of Health said on Monday is in the process of finalising a system for Icelanders who have been fully vaccinated to obtain a Covid-19 vaccination certificate.
- The World Health Organization is providing risk management advice to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Japanese authorities regarding the holding of the Tokyo Olympics, but the top priority is vaccinating health workers worldwide against Covid-19, its top emergency expert said.
- Moderna has confirmed that its Covid-19 vaccine is expected to be protective against the two new South African and British strains of the virus, Reuters reports.
- Some 8.8% of global working hours were lost in 2020 due to the pandemic, roughly four times the number lost in the 2009 financial crisis, but there are “tentative signs” of recovery, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said.
AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine may not be very effective for people over 65, German coalition sources told tabloid Bild and Handelsblatt.
German officials fear that the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be approved by European Union authorities for use in those over 65, the German tabloid reported.
AstraZeneca, which developed its jab with Oxford University, told the EU on Friday it could not meet agreed supply targets up to the end of March.
A man rides a modified bike past a diner after California lifted its regional stay-at-home orders across the state during the outbreak of coronavirus. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
The high rate of positive Covid-19 tests in Mexico likely means the nation has been screening too few people, the top World Health Organization (WHO) emergencies official, Mike Ryan, said, Reuters reports.
Over the weekend, Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he had contracted Covid-19, the highest-profile case of the disease in a country where the new coronavirus has infected nearly 1.8 million people and killed about 150,000 of them.
“The positivity rates are high,” Ryan told a news conference, when asked about Mexico’s testing regime.
“Which probably does represent undertesting over many, many months.”
from WordPress https://ift.tt/3sZ6AcL
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment