Novavax applies for WHO emergency use approval – as it happened | World news

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The US is shipping another 2.5 million Covid vaccine doses to Bangladesh, a White House official told AFP on Thursday, after the Biden administration announced a ramping up of global donations.

The latest shipment – 2,508,480 Pfizer doses – brings the total of US shots to the country above nine million.

Packing was underway and first deliveries, made through the World Health Organization’s Covax program, will arrive Monday, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Doctors in the US are using cutting-edge lung scans to better understand the effects of ‘long Covid’ among patients who suffer severe symptoms months after their initial bout of infection.

The scans by 4DMedical allow physicians to detect areas of high and low lung ventilation using existing equipment in hospitals, said founder and chief executive Andreas Fouras.

The ‘four dimensions’ refers to the scan’s ability to measure the phases of breath as it passes into and out of the lungs.

The hospital in California is one of several across the US where the technology is being tested, Reuters reports.

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel recommended a booster shot of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older and some adults with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk of severe disease.

The panel by a vote of 9-6 declined to recommend boosters for adults ages 18 to 64 who live or work in institutions with high risk of contracting the virus, based on individual risk, such as healthcare workers, teachers and residents of homeless shelters and prisons. Some panel members cited the difficulty of implementing such a proposal.

Panel member Lynn Bahta, who works with the Minnesota Department of Health, voted against that measure, which would have broadly increased availability. “I don’t think we have the data,” to support boosters in that group yet, she said.

The guidelines voted on by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices still need to be signed off on by agency Director Rochelle Walensky, Reuters reports.

The recommendations are not binding, and states and other jurisdictions could disregard them and use other approaches to administering the booster shots.

Stormont ministers have made no changes to current Covid rules in Northern Ireland but have agreed a date when some regulations could be eased.
Following a marathon meeting of the Executive, first minister Paul Givan said ministers were looking towards October 14 as a “significant date” but added that this would be subject to final decisions made the week before. Deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill said it was too early to say they were looking at any date as an “endpoint”. Remaining restrictions in Northern Ireland include social distancing and mask wearing in some indoor hospitality and retail settings, PA reports.

U.S. vice president Kamala Harris has welcomed India’s announcement that it will resume Covid-19 vaccine exports.

India announced this week that it resume exports of vaccines later this year.

India, the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, stopped exports of jabs in April to focus on inoculating its own population as infections soared, Reuters reports.

Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong said he will begin transferring technology to make Covid-19 and cancer vaccines in South Africa.

The US-based doctor, provided details of the plan that will see coronavirus vaccine production starting next year in an online press conference with president Cyril Ramaphosa, AFP reports.

Soon-Shiong’s company NantWorks will transfer the technology within the next three months and vaccine production is expected to begin in 2022.

In addition to the vaccines, the NantWorks initiative will work on cell-based immunotherapies that could lead to new cancer treatments.

The California-based physician Soon-Shiong, who was born in South Africa, said: “We are now set with the knowledge, technology to manufacture vaccines in Africa.

“It is my goal and hope that Africa will benefit from this technology.”

Delta Air Lines wants other U.S. airlines to share lists of passengers who have been banned during the Covid-19 pandemic for disruptive behavior to help deter the rising number of incidents, according to a memo seen on Thursday by Reuters.
Delta said since the Covid-19 pandemic it has put more than 1,600 people on its “no fly” list. “We’ve also asked other airlines to share their ‘no fly’ list to further protect airline employees across the industry,” the memo seen by Reuters said. “A list of banned customers doesn’t work as well if that customer can fly with another airline.”

Life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen for the first time since current records began 40 years ago because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, figures show.

A boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until he is 79 years old, down from 79.2 for the period of 2015-17, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It is the first time there has been a decline when comparing non-overlapping time periods since the research began in the early 1980s.

Pamela Cobb, of the ONS centre for ageing and demography, said: “Life expectancy has increased in the UK over the last 40 years, albeit at a slower pace in the last decade. However, the coronavirus pandemic led to a greater number of deaths than normal in 2020.”

Here’s a round up of the latest key developments:

• Coronavirus has caused male life expectancy in the UK to drop for the first time since records began. A boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until he is 79 years old – a drop from 79.2 years for 2015-2017, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
• The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England has dropped to its lowest level since the end of June.
• Novavax has announced that it has applied to the World Health Organization for an emergency-use listing of its Covid-19 vaccine. The listing is a prerequisite for export to several countries participating in the Covax vaccine-sharing facility
• Covid-19 could resemble the common cold by spring next year as people’s immunity to the virus is boosted by vaccines and exposure, a leading British expert has said. Prof Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, said the UK was “over the worst”.
• Portugal will lift almost all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, allowing full occupancy in restaurants and cultural venues from 1 October, the prime minister, Antonio Costa, said on Thursday.
• Thailand is considering cutting hotel isolation requirements for vaccinated tourists in half to one week in a bid to attract foreign visitors again. It comes amid delays to plans to waive quarantine and reopen Bangkok and other tourist destinations from next month after the pandemic caused a collapse in the country’s tourism industry
• Covid deaths in Russia, where 820 people died from the virus in the last 24 hours, matched the all-time one-day high reached in August. Since the start of the pandemic, Russia has recorded 7,354,995 coronavirus cases.
• The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for those ages 65 and older and some high-risk Americans, paving the way for a quick rollout of the shots, Reuters reports.
• In the UK, record numbers of children and young people are seeking access to NHS mental health services, figures show, as the devastating toll of the pandemic is revealed in a new analysis. In just three months, nearly 200,000 young people have been referred to mental health services – almost double pre-pandemic levels, according to the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
• More than 100 countries face cuts to public spending on health, education and social protection as the Covid-19 pandemic compounds already high levels of debt, a new report says. The International Monetary Fund believes that 35 to 40 countries are “debt distressed” – defined as when a country is experiencing difficulties in servicing its debt, such as when there are arrears or debt restructuring.
• A judge in the Netherlands has ruled that a 12-year-old boy can be administered a Covid vaccine against the wishes of his father. The unnamed boy in the city of Groningen had argued that he needed a vaccine to safely visit his dying grandmother.
• AstraZeneca has announced a deal with a startup founded by an Imperial College London vaccinologist to develop and sell drugs based on its self-amplifying RNA technology platform in other disease areas.

That’s it from me. I’m handing over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah now. Thanks so much for joining me today.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for those ages 65 and older and some high-risk Americans, paving the way for a quick rollout of the shots, Reuters reports.

The booster dose is to be administered at least six months after completion of the second dose, and the authorization would include people most susceptible to severe disease and those in jobs that left them at risk, the FDA said.

Those people include “healthcare workers, teachers and daycare staff, grocery workers and those in homeless shelters or prisons, among others,” said Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the FDA.

This pandemic is dynamic and evolving, with new data about vaccine safety and effectiveness becoming available every day.

Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said the agency will “continue to analyze data submitted to the FDA pertaining to the use of booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines and we will make further decisions as appropriate based on the data”.

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel could vote on Thursday on the use of a third shot of the vaccine, an agency official said at a public meeting of the panel on Wednesday. The CDC will have to approve any booster shot before it can be given.

Joe Biden announced in August the government’s intention to roll out booster shots for people ages 16 and older this week, pending approval by the FDA and CDC.

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Portugal will lift almost all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, allowing full occupancy in restaurants and cultural venues from 1 October, the prime minister, Antonio Costa, said on Thursday.

Costa told a news conference:

As most of the restrictions imposed by law disappear, we are going to enter a phase that is based on the responsibility of everyone.

We must not forget that the pandemic is not over.

Among the few measures that remain in place, mask-wearing is compulsory in public transport, at large events, in nursing homes, hospitals, shopping malls and hypermarkets. Masks ceased being compulsory outdoors last week, Reuters reports.

As Portugal has now fully vaccinated more than 8.5 million people – or 83.4% of its population – nightclubs and bars will be allowed to reopen, after having been shut since March 2020, Costa said.

However, customers will have to show a digital vaccination certificate or a negative Covid-19 test.

Portugal reported 885 new coronavirus cases on Thursday and five deaths. That brings the total tally of cases to 1,064,876 – or around one in 10 Portuguese – and 17,938 deaths.