In response to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pfizer will cease operations within Russia and proceeds from the company’s subsidiary in that country will be donated to provide direct humanitarian support to the people of Ukraine. Regarding COVID-19, Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla noted in an interview with Face the Nation that it is likely that a fourth booster shot of the company’s vaccine will be needed to fend off another surge of infections.
Pfizer Inc. and Bayer said on March 14 they would maintain humanitarian supply of medicines to Russia, but would pull back from other non-essential spending in the country.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has left drugmakers scrambling to find ways for patients enrolled in clinical trials there to receive their medicines as millions seek shelter from bombardment and flee to neighboring countries.
Hundreds of thousands of people inside Ukraine were cut off from life-saving aid due to the military encirclement of cities, a U.N. report said on March 7, calling urgently for safe passage.
More than 400 leaders within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries signed an open letter condemning the invasion of Ukraine and calling for “economic disengagement” from Russia.
Ukraine is running out of oxygen supplies that critically ill people need, the World Health Organization said on February 27, calling for safe passage for emergency imports as combat rages.
The coronavirus pandemic reached a grim new milestone in the United States on Feb. 4 with the nation’s cumulative death toll from COVID-19 surpassing 900,000, even as the daily number of lives lost began to level off, according to data collected by Reuters.
A small preliminary laboratory study has shown that levels of Omicron-neutralizing antibodies of people vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine did not decline as much as those who had Pfizer shots.
Russia’s one-dose Sputnik Light vaccine had a good safety profile and induced strong immune responses especially in people who had already encountered Covid-19, according to the results of phase I and II trials published in The Lancet medical journal.
British health authorities, as well as global experts, are closely watching a subtype of the Delta variant that appears to be rising in the UK.
