Brazil struggles to control the coronavirus surge, while new COVID vaccine Novavax shows 89 percent effectiveness.
Brazil has vaccinated more than a million people, but it is still less than 1 percent of the population as the country struggles to control a surge in coronavirus cases.
The hospitals are overcrowded with COVID-19 patients. The city of Manaus, the gateway to the Amazon rainforest, is still facing a lack of oxygen in hospitals.
A fast-spreader strain of COVID-19 discovered in cities like Manaus and Sao Paulo has posed new challenges for authorities accused of slow response.
On Friday, Novavax, a US-based company, announced that its coronavirus vaccine appears to be 89 percent effective, according to initial findings from a UK study, and that it is also – if not as good – against new mutated versions of the too Virus circulating in the UK and South Africa appears to work.
Africa can expect at least 30 percent of its population to be vaccinated by the end of 2021, the World Health Organization said when vaccines hit the continent.
Globally, the pandemic has killed more than two million people and infected nearly 101 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Hello this is Virginia Pietromarchi in Rome Italy who brings you the latest information on the coronavirus pandemic:
1 hour ago (07:21 GMT)
Great Britain bans flights to the UAE
Great Britain will ban direct passenger flights to and from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Friday, closing the world’s busiest international airline from Dubai to London.
The UK said it was adding the UAE, Burundi and Rwanda to its list of coronavirus travel bans because of concerns about the spread of a contagious and potentially vaccine-resistant variant of COVID-19, first identified in South Africa.
Read the whole story here.
1 hour ago (06:57 GMT)
According to Novavax, vaccines are 89 percent effective in UK studies
Biotech company Novavax announced that its coronavirus vaccine was 89.3 percent effective against COVID-19 in a study conducted in the UK and was almost as effective against the more contagious variant first discovered in the UK, according to preliminary analysis.
An interim study of the vaccine in South Africa, which frequently featured a problematic new variant of the virus, showed 60 percent effectiveness in people without HIV.
After the trial results were published on the same day the US reported its first cases of the South African variant, Novavax shares rose 34 percent in after-hours trading.
Read the whole story here.
2 hours ago (06:48 GMT)
Brazil is struggling to contain the outbreak
Brazil has vaccinated more than a million people, but that is less than 1 percent of the population. The country is struggling to contain the coronavirus and the situation does not seem to be resolved for a long time, as a rapidly spreading variant of the virus has already been discovered in large cities like Sao Paulo.
There is a lack of oxygen in the capital of the state of Amazonas, Manaus. Health care workers work around the clock to keep patients from suffocating to death.
“You ask a nurse to help you and she says there is nothing she can do because she is dealing with another patient who is dying before you,” said grieving Valceny Ferreira. “There aren’t enough health workers to cope with this, but we wouldn’t be in this state if the Amazon state had invested in health care,” she added.
According to studies, the variant of the coronavirus from the Brazilian state of Amazonas detected in Japan is already dominant in its capital Manaus, which reinforces the initial suspicion that it could be more contagious [Marcio James/AFP]
Comments are closed.