Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

AstraZeneca expected to miss EU Covid vaccine supply target by half in second-quarter – report

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Expected shortfall of 90m doses could hit the EU’s ability to meet its target of vaccinating 70% of adults by summer

AstraZeneca has told the European Union it expects to deliver less than half the Covid-19 vaccines it was contracted to supply in the second quarter, an EU official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Contacted by Reuters, AstraZeneca did not deny what the official said, but a statement late in the day said the company was striving to increase productivity to deliver the promised 180m doses.

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‘We’re risking our lives’: California’s slow vaccine rollout leaves essential workers exposed

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Millions who cannot afford to stay home still lack access to inoculation, even as their work puts them in harm’s way

Pharmacy workers helping maskless customers. Uber drivers transporting coughing passengers. Janitors cleaning contaminated workspaces.

Amid California’s slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout, millions of essential workers in high-exposure jobs are still waiting to get the life-saving doses, with many uncertain when or how they will get access.

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Nigeria survey suggests 23% of Lagos residents had Covid last year

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Study suggests infection rates have been much higher across the country than previously thought

More than one in five people living in the state of Lagos in Nigeria had Covid-19 antibodies at the end of October, according to a study that suggests that infection rates were much higher across the country than previously thought.

Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control (NDCD) and Institute for Medical Research collected blood samples from over 10,000 individuals living in a representative sample of households in four states in September and October.

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Vaccinating children could be key to stifling Covid, say experts

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Scientists say there is significant risk of resurgence until all age groups are immunised

Vaccinating children and teens could be key to stifling the pandemic, experts have said, as clinical trials begin to test Covid-19 vaccines in young people.

While Covid-19 is associated with a considerably lower burden of morbidity and mortality in young people, and there is evidence that children may be less likely to acquire the infection, the role of children in transmission is unclear, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

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The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19 | António Guterres

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The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting

  • António Guterres is secretary general of the United Nations

From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic almost one year ago, it was clear that our world faced far more than a public health emergency. The biggest international crisis in generations quickly morphed into an economic and social crisis. One year on, another stark fact is tragically evident: our world is facing a pandemic of human rights abuses.

Covid-19 has deepened preexisting divides, vulnerabilities and inequalities, and opened up new fractures, including faultlines in human rights. The pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of our human family – and of the full spectrum of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. When any one of these rights is under attack, others are at risk.

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Australia news live: Covid vaccine rollout begins; more questions over rape allegations

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Phase 1a of the vaccine program starts today; questions about the government’s response to Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations dominate parliament. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
• Melbourne doctors under review for promoting discredited Covid treatment
• Australia’s first Covid vaccinations rollout out
• Follow the global liveblog

It’s another for the ‘always look at the bright side’ file.

From AAP:

The Morrison government has released the findings of an investigation that the environment minister, Sussan Ley, ordered into her own department over the export of rare and endangered Australian parrots to Germany.

The investigation was prompted by a 2018 investigation by Guardian Australia’s Lisa Cox and Berlin bureau chief Philip Oltermann.

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Cautious Johnson faces battle with own MPs over lockdown exit

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Analysis: many on the Tory backbenches want Covid restrictions over by end of April

When Boris Johnson stands at the dispatch box on Monday to deliver his roadmap for easing Covid restrictions for what he hopes will be the final time, there is likely to be a sigh of relief from his scientific advisers who will have won the most recent battle.

Johnson is now gearing up for the next tussle, which will be with his MPs. There is a truce with the cabinet.

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Scientists say clinical trials for ‘variant-proof’ vaccines could start very soon

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From immunity to blocking transmission of the virus, labs across the UK are hunting for second-generation jabs


Scientists are developing a range of second-generation Covid vaccines aimed at expanding protection against the disease.

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Coronavirus live news: Australia begins vaccine rollout; Israel says Pfizer jab 96% effective

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PM Scott Morrison one of the first to be vaccinated; Ireland’s pubs to stay closed until summer; all UK adults to be offered vaccine by ‘end July’. Follow latest updates

Reuters: Israel reopened swathes of its economy on Sunday in what it called the start of a return to routine enabled by a Covid-19 vaccination drive that has reached almost half the population.

While shops were open to all, access to leisure sites like gyms and theatres was limited to vaccines or those who have recovered from the disease with presumed immunity, a so-called “Green Pass” status displayed on a special health ministry app.

In Australia the state of Victoria has recorded no new locally-acquired cases as the government commits $143m of support for businesses unable to operate on Valentine’s Day due to the state’s five-day lockdown.

Vaccinations will start for eligible high-risk recipients on Monday in Victoria, where there were no local or overseas-acquired coronavirus diagnoses in the latest 24-hour period, with more than 10,300 tests conducted.

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Ban on outside sport can end, top scientist urges Johnson

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Call comes as prime minister aims for all adults to be vaccinated by July

Data on the number of Covid-19 cases is now so encouraging that outdoor sports for children and small numbers of adults should be allowed immediately as part of an accelerated easing of the lockdown, a leading scientist and adviser to government has told the Observer.

With the prime minister expected to take a cautious approach to lifting restrictions in a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, Prof Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University, whose work feeds into the Sage committee’s sub-group Spi-M, said the data showed there was no need for the government to be “ultra-cautious”.

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Israel said to have used Covid vaccines as bargaining tool in Syria prisoner swap

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Russia mediated deal in which Israeli woman was exchanged for two Syrian shepherds

Israel secured coronavirus vaccines for the Syrian regime as part of a Russian-mediated prisoner swap agreed this week, according to an Israeli source and local media reports.

The source, who requested anonymity, did not state the number of vaccines, or whether they were from Israel’s own supply. Barak Ravid, an Israeli reporter, wrote on Twitter that the country had paid Russia $1.2m (£850,000) for its Sputnik V vaccine as part of the deal, citing “foreign sources”.

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Friday that a young Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria was heading back to the country. In return, the Israeli government had returned two Syrian shepherds it had been holding, he said. It is not clear why the Israeli woman entered Syria.

The press in Israel had initially referred to another unspecified but apparently significant clause in the deal, adding that the country’s military censor had blocked publication. Under Israeli law, the agency can prevent reporting on topics it deems related to security issues.

The Times of Israel website said a “central aspect of the agreement” had been barred by the censor “despite the fact that the matter would be seen as deeply controversial to the Israeli public”.

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South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over Covid vaccine access

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Pressure mounts for patent waivers to allow poorer countries to develop their own manufacturing capacity to boost availability

The domination of global medicine by major pharmaceutical companies needs to be confronted to provide fairer access to vaccines, a leading South African official has said.

The scramble over Covid vaccines should alert rich countries to the power of profit-driven companies that control production of crucial medicines, said Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights.

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Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence

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While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs

“Today it is easier to get a nuclear weapon than to get a vaccine,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, declared in January. He was bragging. The Balkans country had just received its first shipment of almost 1m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Since then, Serbia has augmented its stockpile with tens of thousands of shots of Russia’s Sputnik V, signed an agreement to build a bottling plant for the Russian vaccine and now boasts the fastest vaccination rate in continental Europe.

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Macron proposes vaccine sharing plan as UK prepares to host G7

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French proposal comes after accusations wealthier nations have ordered more than they need

As Britain prepares to host the G7 club of wealthy nations on Friday under the chairmanship of Boris Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has proposed that 5% of its vaccines are sent to poorer countries, especially in Africa.

Johnson is expected to advance a parallel plan to cut the amount of time it takes to create vaccines, and may be unimpressed it has been upstaged by Macron.

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‘6.2cm-tall man’ offered priority Covid vaccine after NHS blunder

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Liam Thorp, whose real height is 6ft 2in, was recorded as having a BMI of 28,000

A 32-year-old man with no underlying health conditions was offered a Covid vaccine early because of a blunder at his GP surgery which recorded him as being 6.2cm tall, giving him an astonishing body mass index (BMI) of 28,000.

The Liverpool Echo’s political editor, Liam Thorp, said he was left “really confused” after he was offered the jab this week seemingly ahead of the government’s rollout plan, and shared the “frankly surreal” experience in a Twitter thread which quickly went viral.

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Brazil health workers accused of giving Covid vaccinations with empty syringes

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Police are looking into allegations of so-called ‘wind vaccinations’ amid speculation about possible motives

Police in Brazil are investigating allegations that healthcare workers are giving fake Covid-19 inoculations, amid reports of nurses injecting people with empty syringes.

Cases of what local media are calling “wind vaccination” have been reported in four states, adding to the woes of the country’s halting and uncoordinated immunisation programme.

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Mexico calls on rich countries not to hoard coronavirus vaccines

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  • Foreign minister says 100 countries have yet to give out vaccine
  • Three-quarters of all doses administered in just 10 countries

Mexico has made a plea at the UN security council for countries to stop hoarding vaccines against Covid-19 as poorer ones fall behind in the race to vaccinate their citizens.

Three-quarters of the first doses have been administered to citizens in only 10 countries that account for 60% of global gross domestic product (GDP), the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said, while in more than 100 countries no vaccines have been applied at all.

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Mass testing still a vital tool in Covid efforts despite UK vaccine success

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Analysis: Operation Moonshot rhetoric has been toned down but tests will help spot variants

When the government’s Operation Moonshot plans for mass testing of the population for Covid-19 were first revealed, the intention was to use that as the route out of perpetual cycles of lockdown.

It was described as a £100bn-plus endeavour, with resources likened to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret wartime endeavour led by the US to develop a nuclear bomb.

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Covid: almost 2m more people in England will be asked to shield

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New modelling identifies more higher-risk adults, of which 800,000 will be offered priority vaccination

Nearly 2 million more people in England will be asked to shield and 800,000 of those offered priority vaccination as a result of new modelling that has identified adults at higher risk from Covid-19 because of a combination of health factors and their circumstances, including ethnicity and low income.

Until now the NHS identified those most at risk on the basis usually of a single underlying health condition, such as specific cancers, together with age. But a more sophisticated modelling tool developed by the University of Oxford has shown that the shielding list should nearly double, adding 1.7 million people on the basis of multiple risk factors.

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Australia’s Department of Home Affairs made most requests for Covid misinformation takedowns

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Home affairs has made more than 500 requests for information to be removed from social media

The Department of Home Affairs has made more requests for misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic to be removed from Facebook than any other government department in Australia since March last year, Guardian Australia has learned.

Despite not having direct responsibility over social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, or being responsible for the government’s response to the pandemic, Peter Dutton’s mega agency has sent more than 500 takedown requests for misinformation and scams related to -19, a department spokesperson told Guardian Australia.

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