Low uptake fuelled by fears over safety of vaccine and spread of misinformation
India’s Covid-19 vaccine drive has been hampered by turnout as low as 22% in some states, as fears over the safety of the vaccine and the spread of misinformation has fuelled widespread hesitancy.
On Saturday, India launched the world’s largest vaccination programme as it began the massive task of vaccinating its 1.3 billion citizens against coronavirus.
Continue reading...Surge in infections dampens optimism over country’s advanced immunisation programme
Israel’s coronavirus tsar has warned that a single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may be providing less protection than originally hoped, as the country reported a record 10,000 new Covid infections on Monday.
In remarks reported by Army Radio, Nachman Ash said a single dose appeared “less effective than we had thought”, and also lower than Pfizer had suggested.
Continue reading...Supply delays underline there was no legal or economic justification for central planning
A storm is raging over the EU’s failure to have ordered more of the approved Covid-19 vaccines ahead of time. Stéphane Bancel, the chief executive of the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which gained approval for its vaccine shortly after Pfizer/BioNTech, claims that the EU has relied too much on “vaccines from its own laboratories”.
Did the European commission prioritise supporting its own pharmaceutical industry over protecting human lives? In fact, matters are not as simple as that. Contrary to what Bancel wants us to believe, the EU has actually ordered too little of its own vaccine. After all, the vaccine that is being administered most widely across the west was developed by a German company, BioNTech, and thus comes from the EU (though it was tested and partly produced in partnership with Pfizer in the US and with Fosun Pharma in China).
Continue reading...The emergence of more infectious variants of Sars-CoV-2 has raised questions about just how long our vaccines will remain effective for. Although there is little evidence that the current vaccines won’t work against the new variants, as the virus continues to mutate scientists are preparing themselves for having to make changes to the vaccines in response. Speaking to Dr Katrina Pollock, science correspondent Linda Geddes asks how we can tweak the vaccines against new variants, and how likely it is we’ll end up in a game of cat and mouse with the virus
Continue reading...The head of the World Health Organization has warned that as coronavirus vaccines are rolled out, the world faces a 'catastrophic moral failure' as richer countries administer the vaccine on a vast scale, while poor countries are left behind.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted that millions of doses had been given in higher-income countries while one of the world's poorest countries had administered only 25 doses
Continue reading...Director-general warns of ‘catastrophic moral failure’ if richer countries hoard treatment
The world is on the edge of a “catastrophic moral failure” in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, with just 25 doses administered across all poor countries compared with 39m in wealthier ones, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
It was the sharpest warning so far from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus about the dangers of vaccine hoarding since inoculations started being administered in 49 mostly high-income countries.
Continue reading...Nadhim Zahawi says over-70s being invited for jabs and hints teachers could be prioritised in next phase
The first 24-hour vaccination centres will be piloted in London before the end of January, the UK’s vaccines minister has said.
Nadhim Zahawi said that by the beginning of February the scheme would be under way in hospitals in the capital and also pledged that 50 large vaccination centres would be open. He said that at present about 140 people a minute were being vaccinated against Covid-19.
Continue reading...São Paulo governor João Doria takes aim at Brazil’s president after his state beat federal authorities to secure first coronavirus vaccines
Brazil’s first Covid-19 vaccine has been administered after more than 209,000 deaths, sparking an outpouring of emotion and a ferocious political skirmish that saw one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s key rivals accuse him of revelling in the “stench of death”.
The China-made CoronaVac was injected into the arm of a frontline nurse in São Paulo at 3.30pm local time, after Brazil’s health regulator approved the emergency use of vaccines produced by China’s Sinovac and Oxford/AstraZeneca.
Continue reading...India launches bid to vaccinate 300m people amid fears over efficacy of domestically produced vaccine
Emerging from Holy Family hospital in New Delhi, Ram Verma, a sanitation worker, breathed a deep sigh of relief. As one of the first in India to receive a coronavirus vaccine on Saturday – marking the start of the world’s largest vaccination programmes – he had been feeling a little jittery.
“I must admit I was nervous,” said Verma, who had received his Covaxin jab in a centre set up in the hospital car park. “A lot of us were. I thought I might faint or have side-effects. After all, it is something totally new. But I’m fine. There is nothing to worry about.”
Continue reading...Experts agree that the impact of the jab will vary regionally and among different groups
Analysts are involved in an urgent effort to gauge the impact of Britain’s mass Covid-19 vaccine campaign and to pinpoint dates when lockdown measures can be eased.
More than 3 million people – most of them elderly or vulnerable individuals or health workers – have already been given jabs. Now researchers are trying to establish when the first fruits of the mass vaccination programme may be seen as the government heads towards its target of immunising more than 13 million people by 15 February.
Continue reading...Sage voices concern at BAME uptake and says more must be done to increase trust in vaccine
Advisers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have raised fresh concerns over Covid vaccine uptake among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities (BAME) as research showed up to 72% of black people said they were unlikely to have the jab.
Historical issues of unethical healthcare research, and structural and institutional racism and discrimination, are key reasons for lower levels of trust in the vaccination programme, a report from Sage said.
Continue reading...Race to build app for people to demonstrate Covid jab or a negative test, but rights groups worry about ‘identity checks’
Vaccine passports, which would allow people with immunity to Covid to prove they were at low risk of spreading the disease, are being investigated by companies and countries around the world. But the proposals have also raised fears among critics that they could underpin an oppressive digital ID system, and put sensitive medical records in the hands of authorities and employers.
Despite the name, a vaccine passport is not a piece of paper; instead, in the most developed versions of the idea, it is an app or similar system that can prove the bearer has been vaccinated, tested positive for Covid antibodies, or recently received a negative test. There would be no need to build and operate a privacy violating centralised database.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro, who has said he will personally refuse any Covid-19 vaccine, has cast doubt on the effectiveness and safety of a vaccination that will be rolled out in Brazil as the country's death toll passed 200,000 this week.
Manaus, the capital of Brazil's largest state, Amazonas, has been put under a daily 11-hour curfew as it faces a health system breakdown with oxygen shortages and thousands of deaths
Continue reading...Despite efforts to procure Covid vaccine, some nations will only vaccinate 20% of population
There are triumphant scenes as lorries leave a vaccine plant in Pune, India, loaded with boxes that will prevent thousands of deaths. Adar Poonawalla, the owner and chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, poses on the tailgate of a truck, making the most of his company’s “proud and historic” moment as the potential saviour of the nation – and even a large chunk of the world.
Poonawalla’s factory, the largest vaccine manufacturing complex in the world, is the best hope for immunisation for people in Africa and some low-income countries elsewhere – which could save them from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The Serum Institute has been contracted to supply the UN-backed Covax initiative, which subsidises low-income countries, with 200m doses of Covid-19 vaccines with an option on 900m more.
Continue reading...Drive to immunise 3.5% of the population in weeks comes ahead of the lunar new year festival and as three major cities are locked down
At a Shenzhen hospital, 21-year-old airport worker Wang Shuyue lines up to receive her second shot.
“I feel it’s safe because so many people around the country have taken the vaccine so there shouldn’t be any major problems,” she tells the Guardian. “I think it should be effective otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people taking it.”
Continue reading...Short notice is making it difficult to book advance appointments, as PM admits regional disparities
Inconsistent vaccine supply is making it difficult for GPs in England to book patient appointments more than a few days in advance, experts have warned, as the prime minister admitted there were significant disparities in local immunisation rates.
Doctors, NHS specialists and MPs told the Guardian that batches of the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine frequently arrived with only a couple of days’ notice, requiring last-minute planning and creating uncertainty for patients.
Continue reading...Australia has secured 54m doses of the vaccine some experts say is inferior to Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, which Australia has bought just 10m doses of
Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, and infectious diseases experts have defended securing 54m doses of a Covid-19 vaccine made by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, amid concerns the vaccine will not be effective enough to achieve herd immunity.
The president of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology, Prof Stephen Turner, told Nine media that Australia should halt the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout because it has “lower efficacy”.
Continue reading...With more than 22 million Americans currently Covid-19 positive, infrastructure needed to disseminate vaccine is far from complete
Joe Biden has been promising Americans that “help is on the way” since his election, with a goal of inoculating 100 million people with the Covid-19 vaccine within the first 100 days of his presidency.
But just days away from his inauguration, Biden is reportedly frustrated with his own coronavirus taskforce, and concerned they might not reach their goal in time, according to Politico.
Continue reading...You asked us about the fast-spreading coronavirus variant, here are the answers
How do scientists know the new UK variant is 70% more transmissible, and how certain are they of this figure?
Our gift to the world: the UK variant of Sars-CoV-2. There are sufficient data to quote 70% greater infectivity, but how was this figure ascertained?” D Moon, Brighton
Continue reading...Past medical scandals involving big pharma and public officials have made many suspicious of vaccines
In France, every child is now obliged to have 11 vaccinations. If parents want their children to attend school, or take part in many extracurricular activities, they must accept. There is no opt-out or concessions made to vaccine doubters.
On Monday France’s government and health authorities are speeding up the country’s Covid-19 vaccine drive – a process complicated by widespread scepticism about the inoculation that has encompassed the usual global conspiracy theories.
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