Novavax Inc. delivered just a small fraction of the 2 billion COVID-19 shots the company plans to send around the world in 2022 and has delayed first-quarter shipments in Europe and lower income countries such as the Philippines, public officials involved in their government’s vaccine rollouts told Reuters.
A new study by the American Stroke Association found that the risk of stroke in adults with COVID-19 between the ages of 65 to 74 was highest the first three days after diagnosis. Additionally, investigators at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center ran tests on primates and found that updating COVID-19 vaccines to focus on the Omicron variant may not provide much benefit.
U.S. health officials on Feb. 4 said they are considering lengthening the recommended interval between the first two doses of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines to eight weeks to lower the risk of heart inflammation and improve their effectiveness.
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signed off on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine in those aged 18 and over, the agency said on Feb. 4.
People who die of severe COVID-19 have brain abnormalities that resemble changes seen in Alzheimer’s disease – accumulation of a protein called tau inside brain cells, and abnormal amounts of the protein beta-amyloid that accumulates into amyloid plaques – small studies found. In other news, seniors can safely get the high-dose flu vaccine and an mRNA COVID-19 booster dose at the same time, a new study confirms.
Sanofi still expects the French drugmaker’s COVID-19 vaccine to complete a phase 3 trial in first-quarter 2022 and reported a rise in fourth-quarter 2021 sales and earnings on Feb. 4.
South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics used the publicly available sequence of Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine to make its own version of the shot, which could be tested in humans before the end of 2022, Afrigen’s top executive said on Feb. 3.
Aside from vaccines, the advent of several effective COVID-19 antiviral therapies, including Pfizer’s Paxlovid, provides hope for ending the pandemic. Details about the U.S. government’s contract with Pfizer for 10 million doses of Paxlovid are emerging, with some unusual elements.
U.S. regulators are considering the first COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of 5, the only age group not yet eligible for the shots, after Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE began the regulatory approval process on Feb. 1.
Novavax Inc. filed for emergency use authorization of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine for U.S. adults, a long-awaited step following months of struggles with development and manufacturing problems.
