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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — Argentina’s health minister resigned late Friday after it emerged that friends of his had been able to skip the line for a Covid-19 vaccination. Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garci stepped down after President Alberto Fernandez called on him to quit in the wake of the scandal. “Responding to your express request, I present my resignation from the position of minister of health,” Gonzalez Garcia, a 75-year-old doctor, wrote in […]
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany’s BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer on Friday said tests have shown that their coronavirus vaccine can stand warmer temperatures than initially thought, potentially simplifying the jab’s complex cold-chain logistics. The companies said they have asked the US Food and Drug Administration to allow for the vaccine to be stored for up to two weeks at minus 25 to minus 15 degrees Celsius (minus 13 to five […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A 90-year-old American woman trudged six miles in a foot of snow with two walking sticks to get her coronavirus vaccination. Fran Goldman, of Seattle, had been trying frantically to get an appointment for her first shot, working the phones every day in vain, reports said. When she finally got one for last Sunday, Goldman was determined to keep her appointment — several inches of snow on the ground […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_iXJMAslZg&feature=youtu.be (Eagle News) — Metro Manila mayors have agreed to the proposal of the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 to place the Philippine capital under Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ). After discussions, nine mayors voted to place Metro Manila under MGCQ starting March, comprising the majority vote, said Mike Salalima, chief of staff of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). But he said that all mayors have agreed in the end to implement the […]
Certifies as urgent pending bills that sought to establish vaccine indemnification fund (Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a memorandum order that will speed up the procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccines by allowing more than 15% downpayment for the purchase of these vaccines, and at the same time certified as urgent the bills that sought to establish a vaccine indemnity fund. Memorandum Order No. 51 which was signed by President Duterte […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — Around half of South Africa’s population may have already been infected by coronavirus, a figure far higher than the documented tally, a study and analysis of death figures suggest. Samples taken from almost 5,000 blood donors across four South African provinces in January showed that between 32 and 63 percent had antibodies to the coronavirus. The figure compares with clinically confirmed case rates of just two to three percent, […]
by Philippe Rater with Shaun Tandon in Washington Agence France Presse UNITED Nations (AFP) — The United Nations on Wednesday led calls for a coordinated global effort to vaccinate against Covid-19, warning that gaping inequities in initial efforts put the whole planet at risk. Foreign ministers met virtually for a first-ever UN Security Council session on vaccinations called by current chair Britain, which said the world had a “moral duty” to act together against […]
by Natsuko FUKUE TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan began vaccinating healthcare workers against the coronavirus on Wednesday, as it rolled out a cautious inoculation programme with just over five months until the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Japan has so far approved only the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and started administering the first shots at a Tokyo hospital on Wednesday morning. Tokyo Medical Centre director Kazuhiro Araki volunteered to be the first at the facility to receive the shot. […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The number of new cases of Covid-19 reported worldwide fell by 16 percent last week to 2.7 million, the World Health Organization said. The number of new deaths reported also fell 10 percent week-on-week, to 81,000, the WHO said late Tuesday in its weekly epidemiological update, using figures up to Sunday. Five of the six WHO regions of the world reported a double-digit percentage decline in new cases, […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization gave emergency use approval to AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines on Monday, meaning distribution can start to poorer countries starved of doses to fight the pandemic. The AstraZeneca-Oxford jab forms the bulk of batches being lined up through Covax, the global program aimed at procuring and shipping out vaccines equitably around the world, regardless of wealth. It is only the second Covid-19 jab to have received […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A factfile on the Ebola virus that has plunged Guinea into an “epidemic situation” according to a senior health official, and which has killed more than 15,000 people since 1976. – Origins – Ebola was first identified in central Africa in 1976. The tropical virus was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo — then known as Zaire. Five of the virus species are known to cause […]
by Joe JACKSON in London and AFP bureaus LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain’s coronavirus vaccination programme passed the 15 million mark on Sunday, hours after New Zealand, so far largely spared by the pandemic, ordered its largest city into lockdown. The European Union, facing criticism over the sluggish roll-out of its own programme, meanwhile, confirmed it would fast-track approval of vaccines updated to target variants of the original virus. Germany partially closed its borders […]
