First there was Pfizer, then AstraZeneca, now Moderna and Novavax. How do they differ? And which might you get?
Continue reading...Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation
How EU’s floundering vaccine effort hit a fresh crisis with exports row
A new rule on exports from Europe suddenly blew up into a threat to the withdrawal agreement – and a hasty backtrack
It started with a tweet by a blogger at 4.36pm on Friday. It ended with the prime ministers of the UK and Ireland warning the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, during late night calls, that she had put peace at risk by effectively seeking to erect a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
“OK, I’m not usually on here any more, but I’m making an exception because this is very interesting: the EU’s regulation on export controls for vaccines *does* include vaccines going to Northern Ireland, and the EU is invoking Article 16 of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol,” @dijdowell had tweeted. “I really didn’t have Article 16 being used *by the EU* in the first month of the Protocol’s operation on my list of predictions for 2021. I would be fascinated – *fascinated* – to know what the Irish Government makes of setting this precedent.”
Continue reading...EU’s vaccine blunder reopens Brexit battle over Irish border
Tory MPs use short-lived announcement of export ban to call for overhaul of trade deal, as EU chief is attacked over U-turn
The European Union’s threat to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic risks reigniting one of Brexit’s bitterest disputes, as senior Tories said the move proved the need for an immediate overhaul of the bloc’s treatment of Northern Ireland.
The renewed demands emerged with the EU facing an extraordinary backlash over its bungled announcement of potential export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc. The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the move and the pharmaceutical industry warned that the measures would damage their vaccination efforts.
Continue reading...EU ‘recognise they made a mistake’ in move to block Covid vaccine exports, says Gove – video
Michael Gove says European commission recognised they made an error by seeking to trigger a Brexit deal clause to prevent coronavirus vaccine shipments entering the UK. He added that it was important to cooperate with the EU to make sure the vaccination rollout was effective
- Covid vaccines to be recorded in Dublin in compromise deal
- EU in U-turn over move to control vaccine exports
Fauci: US children will ‘hopefully’ get Covid vaccine by late spring or early summer – video
Children in the US will ‘hopefully’ start to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by late spring or early summer, said Dr Anthony Fauci.
Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, the head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, was speaking at a White House coronavirus briefing, an event re-instituted by the new president after falling away during the last months of the Trump administration
Continue reading...‘I wanted to give something back’: the academic who signed up for the Novavax trial
Librarian says she feels ‘very lucky’ working from home, so she volunteered for the vaccine test
While many have endured almost a year of stress and hardship during the Covid crisis in the UK, others have remained relatively unscathed.
Caroline Ball, a 37-year-old academic librarian from just outside Derby, has even felt guilty at times, having the good fortune of a stable job which she can do from home and not worrying about homeschooling children.
Continue reading...EU gives itself power to block Covid vaccine exports – video
The European commission has announced that it will tighten the export rules of vaccines produced in the 27 EU countries. ‘We paid these companies to increase production and now we expect them to deliver,’ said the commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis.
The ‘vaccine export transparency mechanism’ would be used until the end of March and would control shipments to non-EU countries and ensure any exporting company based in the EU first submits its plans to national authorities
Continue reading...WHO’s Covid warnings were not heeded. Now the world has a new chance to beat the virus
If nations make vaccine delivery equitable, step up testing and study variant genomes, the pandemic could be under control by January 2022
A year ago, on 30 January, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm at our disposal under international law.
At the time there were 98 confirmed cases and no deaths reported outside China. The WHO repeatedly urged all countries to capitalise on the “window of opportunity” to prevent widespread transmission of this new virus.
Continue reading...‘Half-friends is not a concept’: UK should decide who its allies are, says Macron
‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president
Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.
“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.
Continue reading...Explainer: what is article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol?
The Brexit deal clause has been triggered by the EU to place controls on the export of Covid vaccines to NI
Under Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol, all products are normally permitted to be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks, as NI remains in the single market for goods and continues to operate under EU custom rules.
The protocol was a resolution to the sticky Irish border question and was designed to avoid a return of checkpoints along the politically sensitive frontier and minimise potential disruption of cross-border trade.
Continue reading...Arlene Foster: EU limit on vaccines into Northern Ireland is ‘hostile and aggressive’ – video
Stormont's first minister branded the EU’s triggering of article 16 of Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol to stop the unfettered flow of inoculations from the EU into the region an 'incredible act of hostility'
- EU moves to stop Northern Ireland being used as a vaccine backdoor
- Coronavirus live news
- EU leaves UK off exempt list for tighter vaccine export controls
‘We had to go it alone’: how the UK got ahead in the Covid vaccine race
Early partnership between Oxford and AstraZeneca, plus upfront funding, proved vital headstart
When it became clear the China coronavirus outbreak might lead to a global pandemic, Oxford University’s life scientists convened a crisis meeting. It took place on Thursday 30 January last year, and if the rest of the world hadn’t yet realised the potential consequences of what was unfolding in Wuhan, they had.
Around the table in the Nuffield Department of Medicine were experts from in and around the university, gathered for a moment they had feared would one day come.
Continue reading...Everyday Covid mistakes we are all still making
Can we do more as individuals to help slow the spread of coronavirus? We ask the experts
Covid-19 infections in the UK are reducing but remain stubbornly high, despite a month of lockdown measures. So could we be doing more as individuals to curb transmission of the virus? A virologist, a psychologist and a public health expert share their views on some of the Covid-19 mistakes that we are all still making.
Continue reading...Brazil: viral rapper becomes unexpected champion of Covid vaccine drive
MC Fioti’s ‘vaccine anthem’ remix celebrates coronavirus inoculation with music video shot at biomedical research centre
Leandro Aparecido Ferreira laid bricks and flipped burgers for a living until becoming one of Brazil’s most famous funk musicians.
This year, the 26-year-old – whose stage name is MC Fioti – has added a new and unexpected string to his bow: as an unlikely champion of science and vaccinology in a country being pounded by coronavirus.
Continue reading...AstraZeneca must deliver vaccine doses from UK to EU, says Von der Leyen
Commission president says company legally obliged to use UK plants to help deliver on order
Ursula von der Leyen has said it is “crystal clear” that AstraZeneca is bound by its contract to deliver coronavirus vaccine doses produced in the UK to the EU to make up for a shortfall in production in Belgium.
The European commission president dismissed the arguments of AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soirot, that the British government had a first claim on doses produced in Oxford and Staffordshire.
Continue reading...Australia in talks with WHO and Europe over ‘certainty’ of Covid vaccine supplies
Health minister Greg Hunt wants to ensure vaccine doses reach Australia but acknowledges potential impact of ‘supply shocks’
The Australian government will make urgent representations to the European Union after it threatened to block companies from exporting doses of the Covid-19 vaccine amid problems with AstraZeneca’s international supply chain.
The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, confirmed on Friday the government would approach both the World Health Organization and the EU to ensure “certainty” for Australia’s vaccine supplies after the European Commission threatened to impose export bans on companies manufacturing the shots.
Continue reading...How effective is the Novavax Covid vaccine and will it work against variants?
Everything you need to know about the trial results for a new coronavirus vaccine
In an interim analysis of a phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the UK, the vaccine has shown 89% efficacy, with 27% of participants in the trial – almost 4,000 people – older than 65. That trial suggested 95.6% efficacy against the original coronavirus and 85.6% efficacy against the more recent UK strain. Those results were based on the first 62 cases of Covid-19 identified among volunteers, with 56 cases among those given a placebo against just six in those given the vaccine.
Continue reading...Novavax Covid vaccine nearly 90% effective in UK trial – video
Another Covid vaccine, trialled in the UK and bought by the government, has been shown to be nearly 90% effective and work against the UK and South African variants of the virus.
Stanley Erck, CEO of Novavax, has said numbers show 'dramatic demonstrations' of the new vaccine's ability to develop an immune response against different strains of Covid-19.
The UK vaccines taskforce has bought 60m doses of the Novavax vaccine which will be manufactured on Teesside in the UK
- Novavax Covid vaccine shown to be nearly 90% effective in UK trial
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We are seeing a global vaccine apartheid. People’s lives must come before profit | Winnie Byanyima
The poorest countries are missing out on adequate doses of vaccines – and the health implications should concern us all
Nine months ago world leaders were queueing up to declare any Covid-19 vaccine a global public good. Today we are witness to a vaccine apartheid that is only serving the interests of powerful and profitable pharmaceutical corporations while costing us the quickest and least harmful route out of this crisis.
I am sickened by news that South Africa, a country whose HIV history should have taught us all the most appalling life-costing consequences of allowing pharmaceutical corporations to protect their medicine monopolies, has had to pay more than double the price paid by the European Union for the AstraZeneca vaccine for far fewer doses than it actually needs. Like so many other low- and middle-income countries, South Africa is today facing a vaccine landscape of depleted supply where it is purchasing power, not suffering, that will secure the few remaining doses.
Continue reading...EU could block millions of Covid vaccine doses from entering UK
European commission says new mechanism will give national regulators power to refuse exports
Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days after Brussels said it had to respond to shortages emerging in member states.
Following reports of a lack of doses across the bloc, the European commission announced plans to give national regulators the power to reject export requests. The development raises concerns over the continued flow of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, for which the UK has a 40m-dose order, from its plant in Belgium.
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