Switzerland demands more data before
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine approvalThe vaccine won European Union approval last week but German and Austrian medical experts last week recommended it should not be used on people aged 65 or over and Poland said yesterday it would only use the vaccine for people aged 18 to 60 following a recommendation from the country’s medical councilThe Swiss regulator Swissmedic said it was demanding more efficacy and quality data.
The country separately announced it had ordered millions more Covid-19 vaccine doses from other manufacturers.
Switzerland, which has already ordered 5.3 million doses from AstraZeneca, said it was awaiting results from trials of the shot in North and South America involving tens of thousands of people, after earlier trials did not produce clear data including on efficacy in older people.
“As soon as the results have been received, a temporary authorisation according to the rolling procedure could be issued at very short notice,” Swissmedic said in a statement, adding it was necessary to get additional data about safety, efficacy and quality. “The data currently available do not point to a positive decision regarding benefits and risks,” it said.
AstraZeneca reiterated that its vaccine was being reviewed on a rolling basis by Swissmedic, to speed up the approval process, and that it would share information with the regulator as quickly as it became available. “We are confident that our vaccine is effective, well-tolerated, and can have a real impact on the pandemic,” the company said.
AstraZeneca and its partner, Oxford University, have defended their vaccine that is approved in about 50 countries, saying it had 76% efficacy against symptomatic infection for three months after a single dose, which increased if the second shot is delayed.
The Swiss government said it had signed a deal with Germany’s Curevac and the Swedish government for the delivery of 5m vaccine doses, a preliminary pact with US vaccine maker Novavax for 6m doses, and secured a further 6m doses from Moderna.
These new orders bring total Swiss vaccine orders to more than 30 million doses, enough to vaccinate its 8.6 million population about twice over under a two-dose regimen. Further talks with additional developers are taking place for even more shots, the government said.
Expert: European leaders endangering their people's health by attacking UK vaccine rolloutLeaders in Europe are recklessly endangering their own public’s health by using self-serving point-scoring to attack Britain’s coronavirus vaccine rollout, UK health experts have warned.
Kent Woods, a former chief of both the UK and European Union medicines regulators, told AFP:
This can only be negative on the vaccine takeup in France, in Germany and others. This is bad for public health. Forget the politics. This is a threat to public health and people in the public eye need to be very cautious in the messages they make.
The key point to make is that the views coming out from politicians in Europe are in striking contrast to the scientific view reached by the European regulator, which has representation from all 27 EU member states. These are politically driven rather than scientifically driven.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said in interviews published on Friday that the Oxford University-AstraZeneca jab underpinning the UK campaign was “quasi-ineffective” for those over 65.
He was echoing claims that first aired in Germany but which have been contradicted by the European Medicines Agency.
“This is the very age range we need to get this out to. It seems bizarre to exclude the very patients who need it most,” Woods said.
On Monday, France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune said Britain was taking “a lot of risks” with its rollout, highlighting its extended gap of up to 12 weeks between first and second doses.
However, UK scientists back the government’s plan as a means of inoculating as many high-risk people as possible, and the efficacy of one dose was vindicated by research published yesterday by Oxford University.
Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said Macron’s intervention was “extremely unhelpful, ill-founded and inaccurate”.
It’s not going to encourage the French population to line up in a queue. I assume they’re wrapped up in the recent history of EU-UK politics rather than any real public confidence issues.
They’ll be picked up by the anti-vaxxer groups who do their utmost to undermine public confidence with social media posts and memes.
UK experts took issue also with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen who, in defending the EU’s slow rollout, implied yesterday that Britain had cut corners in its vaccines approval process.
“The waters have got really muddied,” Head argued, after Brussels locked horns with AstraZeneca and the British government over the UK-based company’s vaccine delivery schedule. “We’ve had so much good news on the vaccination front that it would be a shame to spoil it with political posturing.”
Robert Dingwall, a professor of medical sociology at Nottingham Trent University, said:
But Dingwall, who has collaborated with French sociologists on research, said sceptics in France would also seize on their own leaders’ words.
It’s important that people like Macron and Beaune think further ahead when (vaccine) take-up will become very important for the restoration of anything near normal life.
If France lags, that will have a devastating impact on the French economy.
The Eurovision Song Contest in the Dutch city of Rotterdam cannot go ahead as normal this year because of coronavirus and is likely not to have a live audience, the organisers said today (via AFP).
Efforts are being made to make sure as many artists as possible can perform live for the event, which is due to have its grand final at the Rotterdam Ahoy venue on 22 May.
The glitzy annual musical pageant, which has millions of viewers in Europe and as far afield as Australia, has already been postponed from 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Organisers are taking a “determined yet realistic approach” due to Covid-19 and have “ruled out that the 65th contest can take place ‘as normal’ in 2021”, they said in a statement.
“The Eurovision Song Contest will definitely make its welcome return this May despite the pandemic but … it is regrettably impossible to hold the event in the way we are used to,” added Martin Oesterdahl, the contest’s executive superviser.
Organisers are now focused on a “socially distanced event” with as many artists as possible performing live but either no audience or a limited one. It will also feature strict safety measures including frequent Covid testing, they said.
The Dutch government has “given assurances” that all artists and delegations will be able to enter the Netherlands, the organisers added.
A second option is for the hosts and interval acts to go live from Rotterdam but with recorded performances from all competitors, and again with no audience or a small one.
A third option is for a “lockdown Eurovision Song Contest” with recorded performances by both hosts and artists, and no audience. A final decision will be taken in coming weeks, organisers said.
The Netherlands won the right to host Eurovision after the Dutch singer Duncan Laurence stormed to victory in the 2019 contest in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
A total of 65,000 fans had been expected to attend nine different shows including the final at Rotterdam’s Ahoy venue.
Duncan Laurence of the Netherlands celebrates with the trophy after winning the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest grand final with the song Arcade in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2019. In the rear is Israeli Netta Barzilai the winner in 2018.
Summary of recent developments The Covax facility scheme aims to distribute at least 330m doses in the first half of 2021, its co-leaders announced on Wednesday. It has also struck a deal with the Serum Institute of India for up to 1.1bn doses of AstraZeneca and Novavax’s vaccines for $3 per dose for low- and middle-income countries.
Travellers visiting Sweden will have to present a negative coronavirus test taken within the last 48 hours from Saturday, the government announced on Wednesday.
Indonesia has launched out a coronavirus breath screening scheme at train stations in the hope it can identify cases using the rapid method to bring down transmission in a country fighting one of the worst epidemics in Asia.
The Ukrainian government is preparing to end a nationwide lockdown and allow health authorities to relax restrictions in areas where coronavirus infection levels are lower, prime minister Denys Shmygal announced on Wednesday in a statement reported by Reuters.
The Danish government has announced plans to introduce a digital document with which people will be able to prove they have an up-to-date coronavirus vaccine.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University are aiming to develop a next-generation vaccine to tackle new variants as early as by the autumn, a senior executive at the manufacturer has told Reuters.
Russia is planning to step up production of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine abroad, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday, as many European countries experience teething problems in their rollouts.
Indonesia has launched out a coronavirus breath screening scheme at train stations in the hope it can identify cases using the rapid method to bring down transmission in a country fighting one of the worst epidemics in Asia.
The breathalyzer, known as GeNose, was developed by the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), and offers results in two minutes after the participants blows into a bag, Reuters reported.
UGM researchers said it detects the the presence of the coronavirus in the respiratory tract with at least 95% accuracy.
“This tool adapts the function of the human nose or of the sniffer dog’s nose, which is to recognise the smell, or in this case to recognise the smell of the breath of a person who is confirmed with Covid, compared to people who are not,” he said.
Subjects with positive results are then required to take a confirmatory PCR test.
It is hoped that the machine will be able to assist in the southeast Asian country’s battle against the virus. Indonesia is faring the worst in the region, with about 1.1 million infections and over 30,000 deaths, stretching its hospitals.
Foreign visitors to show negative Covid-19 test to enter Sweden
Travellers visiting Sweden will have to present a negative coronavirus test taken within the last 48 hours from Saturday, the government announced on Wednesday.
The move is aimed at keeping new, more transmissible variants of the virus from spreading, according to Reuters. Restrictions are already in place for people coming from Britain, Denmark and Norway, as well as for all other travellers from outside the European Union.
“From Saturday 6 February, foreign citizens who want to enter Sweden will have to show a negative Covid-19 test,” prime minister Stefan Lofven told a news conference. “Without that they won’t be able to enter the country.”
The government said there would be exceptions to the rule, such as cross-border commuters and foreign citizens resident in Sweden.
An upmarket hotel in South Africa has introduced robots into its lobby as a way to help reduce the risk of coronavirus infection in a country that has recorded more than 1.45 million cases and nearly 45,000 deaths.
“Welcome to Hotel Sky,” the robot greets guests. “I am not a person, I am a virtual agent. You can ask me a question.”
Three robots ride the elevators and navigate the corridors of the 453-room hotel in Johannesburg, carrying luggage or delivering room service orders, according to AFP.
The robots were designed in 2019 as a key part of the experience offered by the hotel, which only welcomed its first guests after the pandemic had struck.
Denmark has recorded an increase in the proportion of coronavirus cases of the more transmissible variant, health authorities said, despite its overall infection numbers falling.
The variant first detected in the south-east of England is expected to be the dominant variant by mid-February, Reuters reported, with numbers steadily increasing in recent weeks.
Just 4% of all positive tests analysed for their genetic material had the mutated variant in the first week of the year, jumping to 13.3% in the fourth week of January and 16.5% last week.
The rising figures stand in contrast with the general decline in infections observed in Denmark, the general infection rate is on the decline in Denmark, which has seen a steep fall in the numbers since it imposed a harsh lockdown measures in mid-December.
The country has gone from recording several thousands of daily Covid-19 infections in December to only 425 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the State Serum Institute,.
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