Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

Salim Abdool Karim: ‘None of us are safe from Covid if one of us is not. We have mutual interdependence’

Posted on by

The face of South Africa’s Covid science on why Africa has been hit less hard than Europe, the new variant in the region, and the danger of vaccine nationalism

The epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim could be considered South Africa’s Anthony Fauci. As co-chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19, he is the government’s top adviser on the pandemic and has become the country’s face of Covid-19 science. He also sits on the Africa Task Force for Novel Coronavirus, overseeing the continent’s response to the global crisis.

Karim, who directs the Durban-based Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa and is a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, has long advocated for science and speaking truth to power. For three decades, along with his wife and scientific collaborator, Quarraisha Abdool Karim, he has been at the forefront of the fight against South Africa’s substantial HIV and tuberculosis epidemics and in the early 2000s was one of the scientists who spoke out against the government’s Aids denialism.

Continue reading...

All UK adults will be offered Covid vaccine by autumn, says Matt Hancock – video

Posted on by

The health secretary promised vaccines would be offered to every adult in the UK ‘by the autumn’. Speaking on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Hancock said it was ‘very, very important’ that as many people as possible get a vaccine. More than 200,000 people are now being vaccinated each day, he added

Continue reading...

Now we have the coronavirus vaccine, how soon can we get back to normal life?

Posted on by

The government has ordered sufficient doses to inoculate the entire population of the UK against Covid-19 but we are in for a long haul

When will the Covid-19 vaccine begin to have an effect on the nation?

The government has pledged to offer vaccines to 15 million people – the over-70s, healthcare workers and those required to shield by mid-February, and millions more by spring. This should slowly bring the virus under control although it will take many weeks before we can be sure the vaccine is having an effect. Numbers of daily cases of Covid-19 may drop but that decline could simply be due to impact of current lockdown measures. Only when hospital admissions start to reduce significantly will we be sure the vaccine is having an impact. Then there could be be a slackening of lockdown measures. Few scientists believe that will happen before Easter, however.

Continue reading...

The Queen and Prince Philip receive first dose of Covid vaccine

Posted on by

Injections given by royal household doctor at Windsor Castle, where the couple are spending lockdown

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have been vaccinated against Covid, joining more than a million people in the UK who have been given the jab.

In an unusual move, Buckingham Palace – which rarely comments on the private health matters of the couple – announced that the 94-year-old head of state and her consort had been given the injection.

Continue reading...

Covid in the UK: why is it so bad now and when will cases decline? | Nicola Davis and Linda Geddes

Posted on by

With a major incident declared in London and positive test results surging, experts answer key questions

The UK is seeing record numbers of people testing positive for coronavirus, with more than 60,000 positive tests reported on three days this week.

Continue reading...

Why the delay? The nations waiting to see how Covid vaccinations unfold

Posted on by

Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan are among those that won’t start vaccinating for months, in part to see how other populations react to the jab

They are the nations that have been held up as shining examples of coronavirus management. In Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan, daily Covid infections are in the single digits and outbreaks are quickly suppressed.

But there is one area where these nations lag well behind the pack in vaccination. Countries with some of the most enviable healthcare systems in the world – including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea – will not begin to inoculate until the end of February or later.

Continue reading...

‘We cannot take chances’ with South African Covid variant, says Grant Shapps – video

Posted on by

The transport secretary said fears that vaccines would not work against the new South African coronavirus strain prompted the introduction of testing for new arrivals into England and Scotland. 'There are concerns ... about how effective the vaccine would be against it, so we simply cannot take chances,' Shapps said

Continue reading...

Fears Covid vaccines would not work against South Africa variant led to travel curbs

Posted on by

Minister says extra check on travellers introduced as ‘we simply cannot take chances’

Fears that Covid vaccines will not work against the new South African strain of the virus have prompted the introduction of testing for new arrivals into England and Scotland from abroad, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said.

Outlining the new testing regime for England and Scotland, he told Sky News: “This is an extra check and we’re doing this now because there are these variants that we’re very keen to keep out of the country, like the South African variant, for example.

Continue reading...

Bob Grose obituary

Posted on by

For some people, the work they do and the life they lead are in perfect alignment. My friend and colleague Bob Grose, who has died aged 71, was one of those people.

He did historically important work on HIV/Aids for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa, and for polio, HIV and leprosy for the Overseas Development Administration (ODA, later DfID) in India. Writing for War on Want in the mid-1980s, Bob was one of the first to predict that truckers would be high-risk vectors for the HIV epidemic in Africa. He was quickly snapped up by the WHO’s Global Programme on Aids (later UNAids) in Geneva, where he worked from 1987 to 1992 as a technical adviser. He was ahead of his time, mobilising community groups in Africa to raise awareness of the epidemic: a focus of UNAids to this day.

Continue reading...

Europe at tipping point with Covid running rampant, says WHO

Posted on by

Europe director Hans Kluge says rapid spread of new variant is cause for alarm

Europe is at a tipping point in the course of the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said, warning that the coronavirus is spreading very fast across the continent and the arrival of a new variant has created an “alarming situation”.

Related: Coronavirus live news: Japan's PM announces state of emergency for Tokyo; US suffers record daily deaths

Continue reading...

What’s the scientific basis for delaying the Covid vaccine second dose?

Posted on by

UK health officials also allowing combining doses from different manufacturers

UK health officials have decided to delay giving second doses of Covid-19 vaccines and even permit combining doses from different manufacturers, prompting international concern. What is the scientific justification for this decision?

Why has the UK decided to lengthen the gap between the first and second doses of vaccine?
The original plan was to offer priority groups an initial shot of vaccine, followed by a second dose three weeks later. But a rapid increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, combined with the emergence of a more transmissible variant and uncertainty about the supply of vaccine stocks, prompted the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to consider other options.

Continue reading...

Misinformation ‘superspreaders’: Covid vaccine falsehoods still thriving on Facebook and Instagram

Posted on by

Researchers say big Facebook accounts still condemn vaccines while anti-vaxxers banned from Facebook have fled to Instagram

Conspiracy theories and misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine are still spreading on Facebook and Instagram, more than a month after Facebook pledged it would take them down.

Under pressure to contain an avalanche of falsehoods, Facebook announced on 3 December that it would ban debunked claims about the safety and efficacy of vaccines now being distributed worldwide. The company said it removed more than 12m pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram between March and October, and that it worked with factcheckers to place labels on 167 million more pieces of content over the same period.

Continue reading...

Strict Covid restrictions could last months, Boris Johnson signals

Posted on by

PM says lifting lockdown is subject to ‘lots of caveats’ as figures show 1m people in England have Covid

Britain could face harsh restrictions for many months to come, Boris Johnson and his chief scientists warned as figures suggested more than 1 million people in England are infected with coronavirus, or one in every 50.

The prime minister said the plan to emerge from a newly-imposed national lockdown in mid-February was subject to “lots of caveats, lot of ifs”. He refused to guarantee that children would be fully back at school before the summer, calling this a “fundamental hope”.

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson says more than 1.1m people in England have been vaccinated – video

Posted on by

The prime minister said 1.3 million people across the UK have been vaccinated against Covid-19. More than 650,000 people over 80 – 23% of the cohort - have received their jab, he added. Johnson also pledged that 1,000 more vaccination stations would be open by the end of the week


Continue reading...

Covid vaccinations: slow start around world brings dose of reality

Posted on by

Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors

The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.

The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.

Continue reading...

US pharmacist who tried to ruin Covid vaccine doses is a conspiracy theorist, police say

Posted on by

Officers say Steven Brandenburg told investigators he intentionally tried to spoil the doses because he believed the vaccine could change DNA

A Wisconsin pharmacist who was convinced the world was “crashing down” told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released on Monday.

Continue reading...

First patient receives Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine – video

Posted on by

An 82-year-old retired maintenance manager has become the first person in the world outside clinical trials to receive the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

Brian Pinker, a dialysis patient, received the jab at 7.30am on Monday from Sam Foster, a nurse at Churchill hospital, part of the Oxford University hospitals NHS foundation trust.

Continue reading...

Analysis: is it wise for England to mix and match Covid vaccines?

Posted on by

US experts warn against plan to give different second jab if supplies run low

The UK is setting the pace around the world in the approval and use of Covid vaccines but, while other countries watch intently, not all are yet prepared to embrace what looks like public health pragmatism rather than strict adherence to evidence.

Britain is the first country in the world to approve and use the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, just as it was first with Pfizer/BioNTech’s. In a further trailblazing decision, it is giving everyone a first shot of either of those vaccines, with the second shot delayed to 12 weeks afterwards instead of the three- or four-week interval in the trials.

Continue reading...

How is the Oxford Covid vaccine being deployed in England?

Posted on by

With jab to be administered to public for first time, we look at key questions about its rollout

The biggest vaccination programme in the UK’s history will receive a major boost on Monday, with the first use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. Here we look at some key questions about how it will be deployed in England.

Continue reading...

India’s approval of covid vaccines triggers mass immunisation drive

Posted on by

Green light for Oxford vaccine alongside domestic Covaxin hailed as ‘decisive turning point’ by PM

India has granted emergency approval to both the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and the domestically developed Covaxin, signalling the start of one of the largest Covid-19 immunisation drives in the world.

At a press conference on Sunday, the drugs controller general of India said the decision to approve both the Oxford vaccine and Covaxin, which is produced by the Indian company Bharat Biotech and was part-funded by the government, had come after “careful examination” of the data.

Continue reading...