Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus jab has no link to reported post-vaccination deaths and no new side effects, the EU’s medicines regulator said Friday based on the first data from the vaccine’s rollout. The European Medicines Agency said it had looked at the deaths, including a number in the elderly, and “concluded that the data did not show a link to vaccination with Comirnaty (the vaccine) and the cases do not raise […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India will supply more locally made coronavirus vaccines to other countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday, as he hailed the South Asian giant’s fight against the pandemic. India — home to the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute — has embarked on a form of vaccine diplomacy, gifting millions of doses to neighboring countries. It has also exported commercial shots to Brazil and Morocco and expects to supply […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A more transmissible variant of the coronavirus that was identified in South Africa has been detected for the first time on US soil, officials said Thursday. The cases were found in the state of South Carolina in two adults with no travel history and no connection to each other, according to a statement. “The arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in our state is an important reminder to all South Carolinians […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US biotech firm Novavax said its Covid-19 vaccine candidate showed 89.3 efficacy in a major phase 3 clinical trial involving more than 15,000 people. “NVX-CoV2373 has the potential to play an important role in solving this global public health crisis,” said the company’s president and CEO Stanley Erck. But the positive news was offset by results that showed it was much less effective against a highly transmissible variant of the […]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — The African Union has secured an additional 400 million doses of coronavirus vaccines for its members, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Thursday. This comes on top of an earlier announcement by the AU that it had secured 270 million vaccine doses. Most African countries have not begun vaccinating their populations, lacking the financial means to purchase the drugs which have largely been scooped up […]
WELLINGTON, United States (AFP) — New Zealand confirmed two new cases of the more virulent South African Covid-19 strain in the community Thursday, as investigators scrambled to determine how the virus breached border controls. Health officials said the pair, an adult and child, caught the virus in the same quarantine facility as a woman who tested positive over the weekend, ending a run of more than two months with no cases in the community. They […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — A coronavirus variant from Manaus in northern Brazil, first detected in Japan in January, is now the dominant form of the virus in the hard-hit city, a local researcher told AFP on Wednesday. The variant’s quick spread confirms fears that it is more contagious than the original form of the virus, said Felipe Naveca, who studies coronavirus mutations in northern Amazonas state. The variant which was first detected early this month […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British citizens returning home from roughly 30 countries deemed at “high risk” from new coronavirus variants could soon have to quarantine in hotels, reports said on Wednesday. Beefed-up rules will require the travellers to stay in hotels near airports for 10 days, according to the Times and BBC. Non-UK arrivals from the targeted destinations — which include South America, Portugal, Cape Verde and South Africa — are already barred […]
By Ben Sheppard and AFP Bureaus WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — More than 100 million Covid-19 cases have now been recorded worldwide, according to an AFP tally on Tuesday, as newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden pledged to ramp up the United States’s struggling vaccine program. The number of cases, compiled from data provided by national health agencies, represents just a fraction of the real infections as the coronavirus has spread around the globe. The United States, […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — AstraZeneca’s CEO insisted Tuesday that the company was not selling vaccines ordered by the European Union to other countries at a profit, after delayed orders sparked fury from EU leaders. The British-Swedish drugs firm admitted last week that it would not meet its contractual delivery commitments to the EU because of “reduced yields” in its European supply chain. That prompted European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides to announce that the EU plans […]
by Dessy SAGITA Agence France Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia’s Covid-19 cases topped the one million mark on Tuesday, as the archipelago launches one of the world’s biggest vaccine drives to clamp down on a soaring infection rate. The Southeast Asian nation of nearly 270 million has recorded 1,012,350 virus cases and almost 29,000 deaths, according to official data. But low testing rates mean the crisis is believed to be much more severe […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — New Zealand’s borders are likely to remain closed for much of the year as health officials assess global vaccine rollouts, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned Tuesday. Ardern said the emergence over the weekend of New Zealand’s first case of community transmission in more than two months showed the danger Covid-19 still posed to a nation hailed for its response to the coronavirus. She said her government would not re-open its […]
