Britain agreed a partnership with the United States on Thursday to tackle new pandemics by bolstering disease surveillance and genomic sequencing worldwide, on the eve of a G7 leaders’ summit.
Two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are around 85 percent to 90 percent effective against symptomatic disease, Public Health England (PHE) said on May 20, citing an analysis of real-world data from the rollout of the shot.
Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine generates antibody responses three-and-a-half times larger in older people when a second dose is delayed to 12 weeks after the first, a British study said.
Giving a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine but delaying a second dose among people younger than 65 could lead to fewer people dying of the disease, but only if certain conditions are met, a predictive modelling study showed.
U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co. joined Gilead Sciences Inc. on April 27 in lending support to India as the world’s second-most populous country scrambles to address drug shortages and bring a raging new wave of Covid-19 cases under control.
Novartis said on Tuesday that a large British study of the Swiss drugmaker’s cholesterol-lowering medicine Leqvio is not expected to be completed until 2026, a year later than expected, as Covid-19 infections made participant recruitment difficult.
Japanese health authorities are concerned that variants of the coronavirus are driving a nascent fourth wave in the pandemic with just 109 days remaining until the Tokyo Olympics.
One dose of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine offers an immune response similar to that generated by infection and could also offer protection from variants to people who have previously had the virus, a British study said on March 26.
EU leaders voiced frustration on March 25 over a massive shortfall in contracted deliveries of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines, as a third wave of infections surged across Europe.
Confidence in Covid-19 vaccines is growing, with people’s willingness to have the shots increasing as they are rolled out across the world and concerns about possible side effects are fading, a 14-country survey showed on March 5.
