South Africans formed queues hundreds of meters long to get their COVID-19 shots on Friday, after the government made vaccinations available to all adults in order to hasten a rollout beset by challenges and delays.
South Africa has been battered by three coronavirus waves, infecting at least 2.65 million people, killing 78,000 - by far the continent's worst toll - and pummelling an already struggling economy with lockdowns and travel restrictions.
On Friday, authorities opened up vaccinations to 18 to 35 year-olds. About 8% of South Africa's population of 60 million is fully vaccinated, and 14 percent have received one shot.
South Africa's campaign got off to a slow start, owing to bureaucratic hiccups, a failure to start early talks with pharmaceutical companies, and bad luck - it ditched a million AstraZeneca shots on evidence they may not work against its dominant variant, only for that evidence to be later overturned.
Like other African countries, it also been at the back of a queue favoring rich Western nations.
At Cape Town's convention center, the line of people was a mile long, while dozens of cars queued at a drive vaccination venue at converted car racing track in north Johannesburg.
Challenges remain such as vaccine hesitancy and the difficulty of getting vaccines out to remote areas, Mary Kawonga, chair of the COVID-19 Advisory committee for Gauteng, the province around Johannesburg, told Reuters at the venue.
AstraZeneca's antibody therapy
AstraZeneca Plc’s COVID-19 antibody cocktail was found to be 77 percent effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in high-risk people in a key trial that could expand the range of drugs available to vulnerable groups.
Results from Astra’s study found no one in the trial who received the cocktail contracted severe COVID-19 or died in relation to the disease, the company said in a statement Friday. The trial of 5,197 participants, which started in November, was looking at whether the drug could prevent infection in at-risk groups and took place in the U.S., UK, Belgium, France and Spain.
The outcome will be a big relief for Astra after another study testing whether the cocktail could prevent symptomatic COVID-19 in people explicitly exposed to the virus failed in June.
The findings may also salvage a deal with the U.S. to purchase the drug. The U.S. had ordered as many as 700,000 doses for delivery in 2021, the value of which was partly contingent on the failed trial.
Astra said in June it was in “ongoing” discussions with the U.S. government and awaiting results of this latest study - named Provent - before deciding how to proceed.
“We need additional approaches for individuals who are not adequately protected by COVID-19 vaccines,” Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development, said in a statement. “We are very encouraged by these efficacy and safety data in high-risk people.”
Antibody drugs are viewed as a way to potentially protect people, such as cancer patients, who may not respond as well to vaccination, but the products are cumbersome to administer and scale-up is limited. Trials for both prevention and treatment options against COVID-19 have seen mixed success.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Vir Biotechnology Inc received U.S. emergency-use authorization for their product in May after it showed it could keep at-risk patients from worsening, though an earlier trial for hospitalized patients failed.
Brazil
Brazil has had 36,315 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 979 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The South American country has now registered 20,494,212 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 572,641, according to ministry data, in the world's third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest after the United States.
As vaccination advances, the rolling 7-day average of COVID deaths has fallen to less that one third of the toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April.
Cameroon
New measures will be introduced in nurseries and primary schools in Cameroon as part of an effort to prepare a safe school reopening next month, said Minister of Basic Education Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa on Thursday,
"Despite the fact that COVID-19 is still here, we have to readjust what we have been doing before. Now we have new pedagogic tools to continue our program within the environment of COVID-19," Ngoa told reporters in the capital city of Yaounde during a consultation meeting to prepare for the next academic year.
Cuba
Cuba on Thursday reported 8,972 new cases of COVID-19 and 79 more deaths in the span of 24 hours, raising the total caseload to 554,247 and the pandemic death toll to 4,319 since the onset of the outbreak in March 2020.
Denmark
Danes with weak immune systems such as cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, or those with organ transplants, will soon be recommended to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster, the Danish Health Authority said on Friday.
Guidelines for revaccinating people with weakened immune systems will be published next week, said the Danish Health Authority, adding that knowledge in the field is still very limited at this point in time.
"However, it does suggest that certain individuals with significant immunodeficiency need a third injection ... to prevent a serious case of disease if they get infected with COVID-19, even though they have been fully vaccinated," it said.
If data show a need to give booster shots to other groups, such as elderly people in nursing homes, it would not hesitate to recommend this, it added.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia registered 928 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 292,731 on Thursday evening, the country's health ministry said.
The ministry reported 13 new COVID-19-related deaths and 712 more recoveries during the same period, bringing the national death toll to 4,518 and total recoveries to 266,792.
Gabon
About 81,000 people in Gabon have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, said Gabon's health minister Guy Patrick Obiang Thursday in his daily bulletin.
The vaccination campaign, launched on March 19 in the central African country with a population of about two million, is free for all citizens and aims to vaccinate 60 percent of the population.
Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba said on Monday in his address on the 61st anniversary of Gabon's independence, that the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 in the country is clearly "not enough".
Last Thursday, the government extended the health emergency for another 45 days. As of Wednesday, 25,626 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported nationwide, including 165 deaths.
Germany
Daily COVID-19 infections in Germany continued to rise sharply as 9,280 new cases were registered within one day, 3,702 more than one week ago, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Friday.
"This now clearly shows the beginning of the fourth wave, which is gaining momentum, particularly due to infections within the young adult population," the RKI said on Thursday evening in its weekly report on the current infection situation.
The COVID-19 incidence in Germany in the past seven days also kept rising and reached 48.8 cases per 100,000 citizens on Friday, up from 44.2 the previous day and 30.1 a week ago, according to the federal government agency for disease control and prevention.
Minister of Health Jens Spahn on Friday proposed offering booster shots for all Germans. "My goal is both to ensure booster vaccinations and donate vaccines to the poorer states," he told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).
Almost 48.7 million people in Germany have been fully vaccinated as of Friday, bringing the country's vaccination rate to 58.5 percent, and more than 53 million Germans have received at least one vaccine dose.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday underlined the special role of vaccine developer BioNTech in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it a "hallmark" of the country.
The company provided a "way out of the pandemic through decades of research," Merkel said during her visit to the company, adding "we really have to invest in science, in research, in innovation as well."
BioNTech has seen 36.75 million doses of its vaccine administered in Germany, a large chunk of the total vaccines used in the country.
In another development, Germany designated Brazil, regions in Greece, plus Ireland’s Border and West regions, as well as Kosovo, North Macedonia and Dominica as so-called high risk areas, according to the weekly update from the RKI.
Ireland
Eighty-four percent of adults in Ireland have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a senior public health official announced on Thursday.
Paul Reid, chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive (HSE), an agency responsible for Ireland's vaccination program, made the announcement in a tweet.
He said that 6.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country, which has an estimated population of 5 million.
While vaccines continue to reduce serious illness, hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units (ICU) and deaths, he warned that people should take caution as the virus is "hugely prevalent" in the country.
The Irish Department of Health on Thursday reported an additional 1,818 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.
Jamaica
Jamaica is to prohibit residents leaving their homes for seven days over a period of three weekends to curb the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said.
The Caribbean nation has been battling a fresh wave of coronavirus infections and will start its restrictions on movement on Sunday, with the first lockdown lasting three days, Holness said in a virtual press conference late on Thursday.
Morocco
Morocco announced on Thursday 9,462 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally of infections in the North African country to 791,559.
The death toll rose by 127 to 11,472, the Moroccan Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Portugal
Portugal has reached its target of fully vaccinating 70 percent of its population against COVID-19, the country's Minister of Health Marta Temido announced on Thursday in an interview with SIC television network.
With an average of around 100,000 people being immunized per day, the Portuguese Vaccination Task Force has confirmed that the milestone of 70 percent vaccination has been hit - several weeks before it was expected, Temido emphasized.
"Now we have to continue to the next step, which is the goal of 85 percent," she told SIC.
Russia
Russia has so far vaccinated over 43 million people against COVID-19, out of a population of more than 144 million, the RIA news agency reported on Friday, citing the health minister Mikhail Murashko.
Russia is aiming for 80 percent COVID-19 herd immunity by November, its Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said in July, despite its relatively slow vaccination rate. That would mean that more than 115 million Russians would have immunity against the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Russian sovereign fund RDIF said it has achieved positive results from a small-scale study into the combined use of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the first component of the Sputnik V vaccine.
“Preliminary data from the first 20 participants shows antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein (S-protein) elicited in 100 percent of cases,” RDIF said in a statement, citing a clinical trial carried out together with AstraZeneca in Azerbaijan.
Russia on Friday reported 785 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours as well as 20,992 new cases, including 1,925 in Moscow.
Russia was hit by a surge in cases this summer that peaked in July and that authorities blamed on the Delta variant and slow uptake of domestically produced vaccines.
Tunisia
Tunisia will from Aug 25 require 10 days of quarantine for visitors who have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a move to help keep the pandemic under control as cases have begun to fall, the health ministry said on Thursday.
Effective on Thursday, the North African country relaxed its nightly curfew and allowed cafes and restaurants to remain open until 10 pm,, in a partial easing of restrictions imposed to curb COVID-19 contagion.
Tunisian Health Ministry on Thursday reported 2,626 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total tally of infections in the North African country to 632,328.
The death toll from the virus rose by 40 to 22,304 in Tunisia, while the total number of recoveries reached 584,696, the ministry said in a statement.
UK
The UK's health regulator has approved an antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron and Roche to prevent and treat COVID-19, it said on Friday, adding it was trying to roll it out to patients soon.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the drug Ronapreve could help prevent infection, help resolve symptoms of severe COVID-19 infection and reduce the chances of hospitalisation.
"This treatment will be a significant addition to our armoury to tackle COVID-19," British health minister Sajid Javid said in a statement.
Ronapreve can be taken via injection or infusion. It binds tightly to the coronavirus at the lining of the respiratory system and prevents it from gaining access to cells of the respiratory system, the MHRA said.
Ronapreve belongs to a class of drugs called monoclonal antibodies which mimic natural antibodies produced by the body to fight off infections. The drug is not intended to be used as a substitute for vaccination, the MHRA said.
Last month Japan became the first country to approve Ronapreve to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 infections.
Separately, the mass rollout of COVID-19 booster vaccines in Britain to residents over 50 this autumn could be shelved, with government scientists considering limiting third doses only to the most vulnerable, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
Britain's National Health Service (NHS) had drawn up plans to roll out a booster program from September, based on interim advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunzation, the newspaper said.
However, sources close to the committee told The Telegraph there is limited evidence to support such an approach and a "far more restricted" group, focused on those most in need, may be targeted.
"Any booster program will be based on the final advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization. Until we receive the independent JCVI advice, no decisions can be made on wider requirements for those who receive booster jabs", a government spokesman was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Oxford vaccine chief Andrew Pollard said earlier this month that booster shots for COVID-19 vaccines were not currently needed by Britain and the doses should be given to other countries.
Britain had been planning for a COVID-19 vaccine booster program, and health minister Sajid Javid said he expected the program to begin in early September, pending final advice from officials.
Another 36,572 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 6,392,160, according to official figures released Thursday.
The country also reported another 113 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 131,373.
United States
The COVID-19 hospitalization rates for children in the United States hit its highest levels ever, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was quoted by CNN as saying on Friday.
As for adults, every age group under 50 has also surpassed its previous record of hospitalization, CNN reported, adding that "the biggest increase was in adults ages 30 to 39 and children under 18, both of which were more than 30 percent higher than their previous peak."
The current rate of hospitalization for all ages is still below the figure in January, but considering more than 11,000 new hospital admissions have been recorded over the past week, the United States might reach a new record high within a month, according to the CDC.
The U.S. on Friday extended the closure of its land borders with Canada and Mexico to non-essential travel such as tourism through Sept 21 despite Ottawa's decision to open its border to vaccinated Americans.
In another development, U.S. health officials are investigating reports that Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine may be linked to a higher risk of a rare heart condition in younger adults than previously thought, the Washington Post reported late on Thursday, citing people familiar with the review.
The report quoted a source saying it was too early for the regulators to reach a conclusion, and that additional work was needed before any recommendation was made.
Health regulators in June had added a warning to the literature that accompanies the mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer to flag the rare risk of heart inflammation seen primarily in young males. However, they said the benefit of the shots in preventing COVID-19 continued to outweigh the risks. read more
There might be a 2.5 times higher incidence of myocarditis in those who get the Moderna vaccine compared with Pfizer's vaccine, the Post quoted a source as saying.
The investigation that is focused on Canadian data suggests that risks of myocarditis might especially be higher for males below the age of 30 or so, according to the report.
Separately, the Biden administration's plan to provide COVID-19 vaccine boosters is based on concerns that a decrease in the vaccines' ability to protect against milder infections could also mean people will have less protection against severe illness, a premise that has yet to be proven, scientists said on Thursday.
U.S. officials, citing data showing waning protection against mild and moderate illness from the Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna vaccines more than six months after inoculation, on Wednesday said boosters will be made widely available starting on Sept 20.
The additional dose will be offered to people who received their initial inoculation at least eight months earlier.
"Recent data makes clear that protection against mild and moderate disease has decreased over time. This is likely due to both waning immunity and the strength of the widespread Delta variant," U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters.
"We are concerned that this pattern of decline we are seeing will continue in the months ahead, which could lead to reduced protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death."
Data on so-called "breakthrough" infections in vaccinated people shows that older Americans have so far been the most vulnerable to severe illness.
As of Aug 9, almost 74 percent of the 8,054 vaccinated people that were hospitalized with COVID-19 were above the age of 65, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 20 percent of those cases ended in deaths.
Based on available data on vaccine protection, it is not clear that younger, healthier people will be at risk.
Other experts said the U.S. plan requires thorough vetting by the FDA and a panel of outside advisers to the CDC. A meeting of those advisers to discuss boosters set for Aug 24 is being rescheduled, the CDC said on Thursday on its website.
Some experts questioned the focus on booster shots when around 30 percent of eligible Americans have yet to get even a first vaccine dose, despite new COVID-19 cases and deaths surging across the country.
"The more important thing, I think, at this point than boosters is making sure we get the vaccine in any arm that hasn't had one as fast as we can," said Dr. Dan McQuillen, an infectious disease specialist in Burlington, Massachusetts, and the incoming president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
"You could end up in situation where you are chasing your tail, giving more and more boosters in the U.S. and Western Europe, while more dangerous variants are coming from other places," said Dr Isaac Weisfuse, epidemiologist and adjunct professor at Cornell University Public Health.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is accelerating its vaccine procurement and rollout program in hopes of achieving herd immunity before year-end.
On Thursday, the southern African country took delivery of another batch of Sinopharm vaccine doses.
The country has so far been mainly using two Chinese vaccines - Sinopharm and Sinovac - to inoculate its population.
The delivery of the latest consignment comes at a time when the country is registering record numbers of vaccines per day as more people rush to get their jabs to protect themselves against the pandemic.
On Tuesday, a record 104,974 vaccine shots were delivered in 24 hours, surpassing the set target of 100,000 daily doses.
