(Mother Jones) Scientists in Cape Town, South Africa, are “assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people,” the Associated Press reported Sunday.
Last weekend, the New York Times reported that Moderna was profiting by sending most of its vaccines to wealthy countries and that “some poorer countries are paying more and waiting longer for the company’s vaccine than the wealthy—if they have access at all”— something my colleague Edwin Rios called “shameful and dangerous.”
Earlier this year, Moderna said it would expand its vaccine distribution to poor countries. But as we get closer to the end of 2021, most poor countries still don’t have access to Moderna’s shot, all while the a Massachusetts-based company is expected to make around $20 billion in revenue this year.
The move to reverse engineer the Moderna vaccine has backing from the World Health Organization, which coordinates vaccine research, training and production in South Africa, the AP reported. It is a last-resort effort to get vaccines to poor countries in Africa.
Conclusion:
The team in South Africa is hoping to have a version of the Moderna vaccine tested within a year, and in production for commercial distribution soon after.
(The Conversation) The lack of vaccine production capacity in African countries has been the subject of much concern and hand-wringing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has become a particularly hot topic because of the gravely unequal access to COVID-19 vaccines between developed and developing countries.
Africa has limited capacity for vaccines production. Only Tunisia, Senegal, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa have varying capabilities to produce and fill or finish vaccines. The largest and most integrated facility is the Biovac Institute in Cape Town.
Recently Pfizer signed a letter of intent with the institute for 100 million doses per annum. The deal covers the importation of the drug substance in bulk, the filling of vials, and the distribution of the product in Africa and elsewhere.
Africa’s shortage of manufacturing capability contrasts strongly with developing countries such as India, which has extensive pharmaceutical production capability, and Brazil.
That’s why the recent announcement by German biotechnology company BioNTech that it will be building a vaccine manufacturing facility in Rwanda, to be followed by a second in Senegal, is seen as a game changer.
U.S. Congressional Investigation Shows COVID-19 Caused Deaths in Meatpacking Industry Were Much Higher Than Previously Known by Sky Chadde
October 28, 2021
(Investigate Midwest) A House of Representatives subcommittee reviewing the coronavirus pandemic found plants owned by five major meatpacking companies accounted for at least 59,000 COVID-19 cases and 269 deaths — much higher than any previous tally.
COVID-19’s impact on meatpacking workers was much deeper and broader than previously thought, according to a Congressional report released Wednesday.
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis obtained data on COVID-19 cases and deaths from just the five largest meatpacking companies in the country. The new data shows cases and deaths were much higher than any previous tally for the industry.
Combining the subcommittee’s data with Investigate Midwest’s tracking shows that, across the industry, about 86,000 workers tested positive during the pandemic and that 423 died.
In roughly just the first year of the pandemic, 269 people who worked for Tyson Foods, JBS, Smithfield Foods, Cargill and National Beef died due to complications from the coronavirus, according to the subcommittee’s report.
(Baptist News( While inequity has caused the African continent to have less access to COVID-19 vaccines than the rest of the world, vaccine hesitancy already is in full supply.
That hesitancy is hampering the global effort to contain or defeat the coronavirus disease, observers claim. And as in the United States, this hesitancy is driven, in large part, by people’s religious, cultural or personal beliefs
Across Africa, rumors circulate that the virus is not as deadly as touted, that those pushing for people to take the COVID vaccines have ulterior motives, that the vaccines are harmful to humans or carry the “mark of the beast.”
Seeking to dispute such claims, the African Union, the continent’s governing body, through the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently urged people to ignore such rumors.
Conclusion:
But with threats of new variants across the world, experts believe it is essential that Africa continue enlightenment programs about the usefulness of vaccines, as well as an improved delivery system that eliminates bureaucratic bottlenecks and helps get the vaccines into people’s arms.
The Clalit Research Institute, in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, analyzed one of the world's largest integrated health record databases to examine the effectiveness of the third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162B2 vaccine against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. The study provides the largest peer-reviewed evaluation of the effectiveness of a third "booster" dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in a nationwide mass-vaccination setting. The study was conducted in Israel. It is published in The Lancet journal.
Many countries are currently experiencing a resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 infections despite hitherto successful vaccination campaigns. This may be due to the greater infectiousness of the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant of SARS-CoV-2, and to waning immunity of vaccines administered months earlier. In the face of the current resurgence, several countries are planning to administer a third booster dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
This study suggests that a third vaccine dose is effective in reducing severe COVID-19-related outcomes compared to individuals who have received two vaccine doses at least 5 months ago. It is the first to estimate the effectiveness of a third dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine—BNT162b2 specifically—against severe outcomes with adjustment for various possible confounders, including comorbidities and behavioral factors. The study's large size also allows a more precise assessment of the vaccine's effectiveness across different time periods, different subpopulations (by sex, age and number of comorbidities), and different severe outcomes (which are rarer and thus require greater sample size). A recent clinical trial conducted by BioNTech included a smaller sample size and did not estimate the third-dose's effects for more severe outcomes.
He's saying some people who are infected by Covid-19 don't develop any natural immunity afterwards. A big nail in the coffin for the herd immunity crowd.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
