Health

Rich nations have cornered half of future Covid-19 vaccine supply: Oxfam

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A group of wealthy nations representing 13 percent of the global population have already bought up more than half of the promised doses of future Covid-19 vaccines, according to a report by Oxfam on Wednesday. The non-governmental organization analyzed deals struck by pharmaceuticals and vaccine producers for the five leading vaccine candidates currently in late-stage trials, based on data collected by the analytics company Airfinity. “Access to a life-saving […]

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Vaccine trial by AztraZeneca, Oxford University resumes as virus continues grim march

  by Daniel LAWLER Agence France Presse Clinical trials of one of the most advanced experimental Covid-19 vaccines resumed Saturday after a brief safety pause, as infection numbers continued to march upward in countries across the globe. The world’s hopes for a reprieve from the pandemic were dealt a blow earlier in the week when pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University announced they had “voluntarily paused” their vaccine trial after a UK volunteer developed an […]

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Vaccine trust growing in Europe, falling in parts of Asia and Africa – survey

by Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Public trust in vaccine safety is slowly growing in Europe even as it dips in parts of Asia and Africa, researchers said Friday, calling for more investment in health information campaigns for the forthcoming Covid-19 vaccine. The largest ever global survey of vaccine confidence, published in the Lancet medical journal, shows clear links between political instability and misinformation and the levels of trust in the […]

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Sudan’s ‘silent death’ from flesh-eating cuts

by Sammy Ketz KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — It seemed little to worry about: Sudanese farmer Khadija Ahmad was planting onions when she stepped on a thorn that pierced her sandal and cut her foot. But the thorn brought with it a flesh-eating infection, a bacterial and fungal disease called mycetoma, which rips through the body causing severe deformities. For Ahmad, a 45-year-old from El-Fasher in western Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, the first she knew something […]

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Obesity greatest risk factor for young adults with Covid-19

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Young adults with underlying conditions such as morbid obesity, diabetes and hypertension are at the highest risk of being placed on a ventilator or dying from Covid-19, according to a study of 3,000 hospitalized patients aged 18 to 34. The analysis, published Wednesday in the journal Jama Internal Medicine, focused on patients hospitalized between April and June in the United States. It confirmed first and foremost that black and Hispanic […]

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AstraZeneca pauses Covid-19 vaccine trial after unexplained illness

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Tuesday it had “voluntarily paused” a randomized clinical trial of its coronavirus vaccine in what it called a routine action after a volunteer developed an unexplained illness. The company, which is developing the drug alongside the University of Oxford, is a frontrunner in the global race for a Covid-19 vaccine. “As part of the ongoing randomized, controlled global trials of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine, our standard review […]

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Russia vaccine ‘passes early trial test’; participants developed antibodies within 1st 3 weeks

   Kelly MACNAMARA Agence France Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Early tests of a Russian coronavirus vaccine showed encouraging results when details were published Friday, but experts said the trials were too small to prove safety and effectiveness. Russia announced last month that its vaccine, named “Sputnik V” after the Soviet-era satellite that was the first launched into space in 1957, had already received approval. This raised concerns among Western scientists over a lack […]

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WHO tempers quick vaccine hopes

by Nina LARSON Agence France Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization said Friday it did not expect widespread immunization against the novel coronavirus until mid-2021, tempering hopes just as research revealed encouraging early results from a Russian vaccine. The virus which has killed nearly 870,000 people worldwide continues to spread, with Italy’s flamboyant former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi now in hospital after becoming the latest high-profile figure to test positive for Covid-19. […]

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What is the best way to share out a future Covid-19 vaccine?

  by Ivan Couronne Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — An international group of ethicists on Thursday criticized the World Health Organization’s goal of distributing coronavirus vaccines to treat 20 percent of each country’s population, proposing instead what they said was a more equitable system of distribution. In an article published in the journal Science, US professor Ezekiel Emanuel and more than a dozen experts from Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway and Singapore suggested […]

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Unilever to cut carbon footprint in cleaning items

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever on Wednesday unveiled a one-billion-euro plan to remove fossil fuels in the production of cleaning and laundry products which have experienced soaring demand from coronavirus-fearing consumers. The initiative, worth the equivalent of $1.2 billion, will replace all the carbon derived from fossil fuels used in the production of some of Unilever’s best-known products by 2030, it said in a statement. Unilever aims to transform the sustainability […]

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Experts probe obesity link to severe virus response

by Kelly MACNAMARA PARIS, France (AFP) — Inflammatory and immune responses linked to obesity could help explain the likelihood of a more severe outcome among patients with Covid-19, European experts said Wednesday. As the new coronavirus has spread, killing more than 800,000 people globally, it has become increasingly clear that co-morbidities put patients at greater risk. In a presentation at European and International Congress on Obesity, researchers said that inflamation caused by a buildup of […]

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