Newly published data shows 90% efficacy only in small group who got half-dose first
The Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has efficacy of 90% in a small group who got a half-dose first, but only 62% in the majority, full trial data newly published in the Lancet has confirmed.
The results may create a quandary for regulatory bodies, which will have to decide on how the vaccine should be used if they approve it.
Continue reading...Pilot planned for January will give subjects a shot of both Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech versions
A trial is likely to go ahead in January to find out whether mixing and matching Covid vaccines gives better protection than two doses of the same one, the head of the British government’s taskforce has said.
The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab is an mRNA vaccine. Essentially, mRNA is a molecule used by living cells to turn the gene sequences in DNA into the proteins that are the building blocks of all their fundamental structures. A segment of DNA gets copied (“transcribed”) into a piece of mRNA, which in turn gets “read” by the cell’s tools for synthesising proteins.
Continue reading...The arrival of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine marks the ‘beginning of the end’ of the pandemic, the health secretary said, as hospitals across the country prepare to begin vaccinating the public on 8 December.
About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care home residents and carers, the over-80s and some health workers first to receive the shots
Continue reading...Advisory meeting will discuss feasibility of human challenge trials despite first jabs becoming available
The World Health Organization is holding discussions on Monday about the feasibility of trials in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to hasten vaccine development – amid questions over whether they should go ahead given the promising data from the frontrunner vaccine candidates.
Some scientists have reservations about exposing volunteers to a virus for which there is no cure, although there are treatments that can help patients. However, proponents argue that the risks of Covid-19 to the young and healthy are minimal, and the benefits to society are high.
Continue reading...Discovery of wartime disease transmitted by lice prompts calls for more to be done for vulnerable
A disease transmitted by body lice that plagued soldiers during the first world war has been identified in a former homeless man in Canada, prompting calls for more to be done to improve conditions for vulnerable people.
Trench fever is caused by the bacterium Bartonella quintana and is spread by the faeces of body lice. The condition became rife among armies and is thought to have affected more than a million troops during the 1914-18 conflict.
Continue reading...NSW to lift tranche of restrictions while in Victoria it will no longer be compulsory to wear face masks in offices or cafes; federal parliament returns for the final sitting week of 2020 – latest updates
Victoria will begin accepting international flights again from today – a flight from Sri Lanka is about to touch down in Melbourne. All up, there will be about 125 travellers arriving as part of the hotel quarantine program in Victoria today.
There is no longer any private security guards as part of the Victoria program – and any worker has to work exclusively for the Victorian government.
The latest foreign interference laws are also due to pass parliament this week – these ones are the ones looking at agreements with foreign governments that private organisations and state governments have made.
States, Territories and local governments will have three months to handover agreements with foreign governments which @dfat "will carefully and methodically consider against Australia's foreign policy settings" #auspol @Birmo @SBSNews pic.twitter.com/pwT5PtCEta
Continue reading...Medical director warns of great hurdles in largest vaccination campaign in UK history
Batches of the Covid vaccine have begun to arrive in hospitals around the UK, ready for the first jabs on Tuesday in what NHS England’s medical director warned would be the largest and most complex vaccination campaign in the country’s history.
The UK’s record-breaking approval of the vaccine and the rapid start of immunisation against Covid-19 did not mean the end of the pandemic was in sight, said Prof Stephen Powis. It would be a marathon and not a sprint, he said.
Continue reading...Back pain has become rife in lockdown. But that’s not the only reason chiropractors are being hailed as YouTube influencers – there’s a horror movie thrill, too
The man in a waistcoat and jeans stands over a woman who lies face-down on a vinyl bed. He is all hairy arms, and she a mop of dip-dyed hair. He presses one palm on her back; with the other he cups the side of her head and sharply thrusts. Click, crack: her neck twists in a way that necks don’t usually like to be twisted. The woman curses in apparent relief; the man laughs. He is Joseph Cipriano, a chiropractor who is also known as Dr Joe Back Crack or the Y Strap Doc (after his trademark treatment tool) and this video of him adjusting a client with “*EXTREMELY LOUD* chiropractic cracking” has been viewed 19m times.
Cipriano, who has 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube and his own range of “Team Y Strap” and “Make Your Spine Great Again” sweatshirts, is one of what his fellow chiropractors, Doc Manasseh, calls “a new wave of chiropractors globally to have gone viral”. In an age of back pain, chiropractors are the new social media influencers. But why do so many people want to watch them? And is the rise about more than a interest in good spine health?
Continue reading...We trace the extraordinary research effort, from the discovery of the virus’s structure to the start of inoculations this week
In the early afternoon of 3 January this year, a small metal box was delivered to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre addressed to virus expert Prof Zhang Yongzhen. Inside, packed in dry ice, were swabs from a patient who was suffering from a novel, occasionally fatal respiratory illness that was sweeping the city of Wuhan. Exactly what was causing terrifying rises in case numbers, medical authorities wanted to know? And how was the disease being spread?
Related: ‘I worked so hard in the lab. I cried when the news came’
Continue reading...Officials fear delays even after EU deal as Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen order talks to resume
Tens of millions of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured in Belgium will be flown to Britain by military aircraft to avoid delays at ports caused by Brexit, under contingency plans being developed by the government.
Both the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and senior sources at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed to the Observer on Saturday that large consignments would be brought in from 1 January by air if road, rail and sea routes were subject to widely expected delays after that date.
Continue reading...Ex-ITN presenter tells how Abba transformed Bonnie Suchet as study reveals most carers are unaware of the benefits of music
When John Suchet discovered the effect that music had on his wife Bonnie’s dementia, it was transformational. “She would close her eyes and love it, beat in time to the music with her hands, tap her feet,” he said.
The former ITN newscaster’s wife had lost her ability to speak. She had been locked inside her head, sitting blankly, apparently unable to make sense of the outside world.
Continue reading...Vaccine could be in use by 2024 if next year’s human trials are successful
The Oxford team that has produced a successful coronavirus vaccine is about to enter the final stage of human trials in its quest for an inoculation against malaria.
The Jenner Institute director, Prof Adrian Hill, said the malaria vaccine would be tested on 4,800 children in Africa next year after early trials yielded promising results.
Continue reading...Analysis: Vaccine hesitancy is growing, thanks in part to social media misinformation. Time for the Elvis approach?
The statement by the US president-elect, Joe Biden, that he would be happy to be publicly vaccinated against coronavirus to encourage people to follow suit – following similar pledges from Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton – highlights a fundamental concern in global health circles.
Vaccine hesitancy – as well as anti-vaccination activism, sometimes promoted by celebrities – is growing. Countries that were once measles-free are seeing new cases due to suspicion over vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy was listed a year ago as one of the World Health Organization’s 10 global health threats to watch, alongside Ebola and the threat of a global influenza pandemic. Coronavirus came instead.
Continue reading...Education secretary lauds vaccine rollout saying scientists in UK better than in France, Belgium or US
The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.
Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.
Continue reading...A highly anticipated judgement on Tuesday concluded children under 16 are unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent
A landmark high court ruling has focused a spotlight on the work of the Gender Identity Development Service for Children and Adolescents (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust in London.
The highly anticipated judgment on Tuesday concerned legal action taken by 23-year-old Keira Bell against the service – the only one of its kind for England and Wales.
Continue reading...PM says news brings ‘sure and certain knowledge’ that people can reclaim their lives
Boris Johnson has declared that the nation is no longer resting on the hope of a return to normality by spring but instead has the “certain knowledge” that people can reclaim their lives, as he hailed the arrival of the newly approved Covid-19 vaccine.
The prime minister told a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday that “the scientists have done it”, although he stressed that people should not get carried away with “over-optimism”, insisting that they continue to abide by the rules.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM holds press conference after earlier warning people not to ‘get hopes up too soon’ about early vaccination
Stevens is talking about the vaccination guidelines. (See 11.23am.)
The roll-out will be phased, he says.
Johnson urges people in tier 3 areas to take part in community testing.
And people should follow the restrictions, he says.
Continue reading...Matt Hancock has reiterated that the UK is the first country in the world to have a clinically approved coronavirus vaccine for supply, and the government was prepared for it to be 'ready to go' once approval came through.
Batch testing has been completed for the first 800,000 doses of the vaccine that will be available for the whole of the UK, Hancock said. Britain has ordered stocks of seven different vaccines, comprising 350m doses in total. The NHS will start vaccinating from 'early next week'
Continue reading...This based-on-fact story of a teenager who flees war in Somalia to become a crusading activist against FGM is earnest but effective drama
Inspired by real events, this earnest but effective drama depicts how Ifrah Ahmed (played as a teenager by Malaika Herrador, and as an adult by Aja Naomi King) escaped Somalia during a war in 2006, made it to Ireland where she was eventually granted asylum, and then went on to become a crusading activist against female genital mutilation. It’s certainly a remarkable story, one full of tragedy, adventure, suspense and even moments of joy, especially in the latter half when Ahmed finds a community of friends and allies willing to help her quest.
Continue reading...‘Historic moment’ allows mass immunisation, with 800,000 doses expected to be available next week
The UK has become the first western country to license a vaccine against Covid, opening the way for mass immunisation with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to begin next week for those most at risk.
The vaccine has been authorised for emergency use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), before decisions by the US and Europe. The MHRA was given power to approve the vaccine by the government under special regulations before 1 January, when it will become fully responsible for medicines authorisation in the UK after Brexit.
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