Medicine i_need_contribute
COVID-19 news update Sep/24
source:World Traditional Medicine Forum 2021-09-24 [Medicine]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Country,
Other

Total
Cases

New
Cases

Total
Deaths

World

231,358,332

+515,113

4,741,722

USA

43,532,306

+127,463

702,978

India

33,593,492

+31,458

446,399

Brazil

21,308,178

+24,611

593,018

UK

7,565,867

+36,710

135,803

Russia

7,354,995

+21,438

201,445

France

6,977,722

+6,229

116,371

Turkey

6,960,297

+27,844

62,524

Iran

5,493,591

+16,362

118,508

Argentina

5,246,998

+1,733

114,772

Colombia

4,946,811

+1,608

126,032

Spain

4,943,855

+3,031

86,185

Italy

4,649,906

+4,061

130,551

Indonesia

4,201,559

+2,881

141,114

Germany

4,185,633

+10,076

93,847

Mexico

3,597,168

+11,603

273,391

Poland

2,900,862

+974

75,537

South Africa

2,892,081

+2,783

86,655

Philippines

2,434,753

+17,411

37,405

Ukraine

2,370,425

+7,866

55,284

Peru

2,170,475

+1,048

199,156

Malaysia

2,156,678

+13,754

24,681

Netherlands

1,991,628

+1,823

18,144

Iraq

1,987,352

+2,953

21,993

Czechia

1,687,969

+524

30,449

Japan

1,683,965

+3,425

17,319

Chile

1,649,409

+859

37,410

Canada

1,594,200

+4,598

27,581

Bangladesh

1,548,320

+1,144

27,337

Thailand

1,524,613

+13,256

15,884

Israel

1,254,351

+5,023

7,611

Pakistan

1,232,595

+2,357

27,432

Belgium

1,229,236

+2,554

25,533

Romania

1,172,981

+7,095

35,964

Portugal

1,064,876

+885

17,938

Morocco

925,507

+1,583

14,076

Serbia

893,023

+6,480

7,926

Kazakhstan

870,059

+2,693

10,913

Cuba

832,286

+6,935

7,048

Hungary

819,547

+526

30,145

Jordan

817,487

+913

10,645

Nepal

788,769

+941

11,072

UAE

733,972

+329

2,083

Austria

730,403

+1,707

10,943

Vietnam

728,435

+9,472

18,017

Tunisia

703,059

+556

24,676

Greece

641,022

+2,101

14,606

Lebanon

620,552

+602

8,260

Georgia

602,065

+1,653

8,711

Saudi Arabia

546,792

+57

8,684

Guatemala

542,024

+4,037

13,241

Belarus

524,248

+1,973

4,054

Costa Rica

518,632

+2,701

6,168

Sri Lanka

510,040

+1,368

12,448

Bolivia

497,984

+308

18,681

Bulgaria

489,423

+1,835

20,350

Azerbaijan

477,587

+1,178

6,394

Panama

465,471

+324

7,192

Paraguay

459,751

+31

16,139

Myanmar

453,407

+1,744

17,343

Kuwait

411,358

+42

2,443

Slovakia

405,931

+949

12,592

Croatia

396,470

+1,373

8,554

Palestine

392,452

+2,083

3,980

Uruguay

388,191

+123

6,049

Ireland

380,720

+1,354

5,209

Honduras

361,527

+929

9,627

Venezuela

359,633

+1,171

4,363

Denmark

355,944

+341

2,638

Ethiopia

338,306

+1,544

5,291

Libya

335,055

+1,006

4,569

Lithuania

321,256

+1,499

4,871

Oman

303,551

+39

4,093

Egypt

299,710

+722

17,074

S. Korea

292,699

+1,716

2,427

Mongolia

287,317

+3,361

1,159

Slovenia

287,278

+1,011

4,521

Moldova

286,536

+1,215

6,649

Bahrain

274,614

+90

1,389

Armenia

255,648

+939

5,200

Kenya

247,675

+317

5,045

Qatar

236,016

+109

604

Zambia

208,715

+39

3,641

Nigeria

203,514

+433

2,668

Algeria

202,283

+161

5,748

North Macedonia

188,635

+522

6,539

Norway

185,330

+721

850

Kyrgyzstan

178,036

+95

2,595

Botswana

176,427

+2,639

2,360

Uzbekistan

170,520

+531

1,207

Albania

165,864

+768

2,609

Cyprus

117,759

+251

551

Suriname

39,140

+371

828

Aruba

15,351

+18

160

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

EU drugs regulator to decide on Pfizer vaccine booster in early October

 

The exterior of the European Medicines Agency is seen in Amsterdam, Netherlands, December 18, 2020. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

 

 The European Medicines Agency (EMA) aims to decide in early October whether to endorse a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE.N), COVID-19 vaccine to be given half a year after the initial two-shot course, saying breakthrough infections added some urgency to its review.

"The outcome of this evaluation is expected in early October, unless supplementary information is needed," EMA's head of vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, told a press briefing on Thursday.

Cavaleri's statement confirmed a Reuters report earlier in the day on EMA's expected review time on the matter. read more

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a third dose of Pfizer for those aged 65 and older, all people at high risk of severe disease, and others who are regularly exposed to the coronavirus. read more

The EU regulator said on Sept. 6 it had begun its evaluation of data submitted by Pfizer and BioNTech for a booster dose to be given six months after the second dose in people 16 years of age and older. read more

Moderna (MRNA.O) is also expected to submit data to the EMA this month on its booster dose, an EU document said.

EMA added that, in early October at the latest, it would conclude its review of the use of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna shots in people with a weak immune system already one month after their initial two-shot regimen.

"The evidence is becoming clearer on the need to consider this option for people who may respond poorly to COVID-19 vaccination, such as immunocompromised individuals," said Cavaleri.

In an opinion issued in early September and republished by the EMA, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said there was no urgent need to administer booster doses to fully vaccinated people in the general population.

But many EU states have already decided to administer a booster dose despite facing higher legal risks without a formal decision to do so by the EMA. read more

EMA on Thursday conceded there may be merits in doing so.

"With an increase in breakthrough cases that we've seen over time, we do understand that member states in Europe and countries elsewhere want to consider now the option of a booster, particularly in vulnerable groups and that is why we have been expediting our review," said Cavaleri.

He added he expects Pfizer and BioNTech to submit data on vaccine use in children aged five to 11 years in early October, and similar data from Moderna in early November, with a review likely taking around four weeks if no further data is required.

On CureVac's (5CV.DE) request for vaccine approval, the EMA official said that by the end the year the watchdog should be "in a better position to really understand what could be the next step for this vaccine". CureVac in June and July published disappointing trial data. read more

The EU has signed three deals with Pfizer and BioNTech for a total of 2.4 billion doses.

The latest contract covers the supply of at least 900 million shots, a large part of which is likely to be needed only if boosters are considered necessary, or if new virus variants emerge against which existing vaccination is not effective.

Over 70% of the EU's adult population has already been fully vaccinated, and the bloc has secured an ample supply of vaccines from several manufacturers.

The ECDC has said crucial data on the need and safety of boosters are still missing, in part because it is not yet fully clear how long vaccines protect against the virus.

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-drugs-regulator-says-decide-pfizer-vaccine-booster-early-october-2021-09-23/

 

 

 

4DMedical lung imagery sheds more light on 'long COVID' effects

By Omar Younis

 

Hospital staff do an x-ray of the lung of a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Hospital del Mar, where an additional ward has been opened to deal with an increase in coronavirus patients in Barcelona, Spain July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

 

Doctors in California are using cutting-edge lung scans to better understand the effects of 'long COVID' among patients who suffer severe symptoms months after their initial bout of infection.

The scans by 4DMedical allow physicians to detect areas of high and low lung ventilation using existing equipment in hospitals, said founder and Chief Executive Andreas Fouras.

The 'four dimensions' refers to the scan's ability to measure the phases of breath as it passes into and out of the lungs.

"It takes a short video sequence. We use about 20 seconds worth of video sequence of the patient just breathing naturally," said Fouras. "From that video sequence, we're able to mathematically calculate the motion and then the airflow everywhere around the lungs."

The imagery shows evidence of lung damage that cannot be seen on a CT scan or X-ray, said Dr. Ray Casciari, a pulmonologist at the St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, California, who serves as 4DMedical's chief clinical adviser.

The hospital is one of several across the United States where the technology is being tested.

"The green area is an area of average ventilation and the red that you see out here is very poor, in fact, no ventilation," said Casciari, showing a lung image of a COVID pneumonia patient with symptoms including shortness of breath.

The technology uses algorithms and mathematical models to convert sequences of X-ray images into quantitative data.

"They do some pretty ordinary imaging... and then we analyze those images," Fouras said. "We take that X-ray video, layer our software on top of that and create the scans."

The technology is most useful for long COVID patients who have lung damage, Fouras said.

 

Retrieved from:  https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/4dmedical-lung-imagery-sheds-more-light-long-covid-effects-2021-09-23/

 

 

 

African health experts hail Biden’s vaccine pledge, but call for more transparency

By Shashank Bengali

 

A picture containing person, indoorDescription automatically generated Receiving a dose of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine in Johannesburg, South Africa, earlier this year.Credit...Themba Hadebe/Associated Press

African public health experts on Thursday hailed President Biden’s plan to expand global coronavirus vaccine donations, but warned that his ambitious goals would not be met without timelier deliveries and greater transparency about when and how many doses were coming.

Africa, the continent with the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rate, has suffered not only from a shortage of vaccine doses but also from delayed and inconsistent deliveries. Although supplies have been increasing — four million doses arrived over the past week from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing facility — African countries have still received only one-third of the doses they were promised for this year, experts said at a virtual briefing held by the World Health Organization.

“The first thing to say is, we appreciate all the donations that were pledged by the rich countries and those who have doses to offer,” said Githinji Gitahi, chief executive of Amref Health Africa, a charity. “But we call for a commitment to deliver on those, and deliver in a timely manner.”

Anger over the rich-poor divide in vaccine access was a consistent theme among the leaders of African countries speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the global rollout of the vaccine has not been impervious to the scourge of inequality,” said President Hage G. Geingob of Namibia. He called the situation “vaccine apartheid.”

President João Lourenço of Angola said it was “shocking to see the disparity between some nations and others with respect to availability of vaccines.”

At a summit on Wednesday, Mr. Biden pledged to donate an additional 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, nearly doubling the United States’ total committed donations to 1.1 billion doses, more than any other country. But only 300 million of the doses are expected to be shipped this year, leaving poorer nations with the prospect of a longer wait.

Mr. Biden embraced the target of vaccinating 70 percent of the world’s people by the end of 2022. But that would require raising the pace of vaccinations in Africa sevenfold, to about 150 million doses a month, said Benido Impouma, a program director with the World Health Organization’s Africa program.

“It is in every country’s interest that this happen quickly,” Dr. Impouma said of speeding up the continent’s vaccination campaign. “The longer the delay in rolling out the vaccine, the greater the risk of other challenges emerging,” he added, including the rise of more troubling coronavirus variants.

To date, he and others said, vaccine deliveries to Africa have been not only slow and scant, but also unpredictable. Many shipments have arrived with little notice, hampering health systems’ ability to administer them, and with doses soon to expire.

Richard Mihigo, coordinator of the W.H.O. immunizations program in Africa, said that the agency had analyzed the vaccine shipments and found that the average shelf life of doses that reached Africa was two to three months. That wasn’t long enough for health systems to get the doses to people who needed them, many of whom lived far from health facilities, he said.

“Most of time the news about donations comes on short notice, within a couple of days,” Dr. Mihigo said. “Countries do not have time to prepare. To change this paradigm, we need a bit more predictability on doses, how many doses, when they are coming.”

The surfeit of soon-to-expire doses has also contributed to vaccine hesitancy in parts of Africa, said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director general of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“People consider that a short shelf life, such as three months, is a synonym for bad quality,” he said.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/world/vaccine-covid-africa.html

 

 

 

Cuba expects to reach ‘full immunization’ with homegrown vaccines by Dec. 31

By Rick Gladstone

 

A teenager received a dose of the Soberana 02 vaccine this summer in Havana, Cuba.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

 

Cuba expects to reach “full immunization” against Covid-19 with its own vaccines by the end of the year, the president of the island nation told the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, whose 11 million citizens have long been isolated by the American embargo, devoted much of his recorded address to fulminating against the United States for what he called its policies of economic coercion and deprivation, which he said were meant “to erase the Cuban revolution from the political map to the world.”

But he also extolled Cuba’s medical and scientific communities for what he described as their heroic achievements in creating vaccines to combat the pandemic. More than one-third of the Cuban population has been fully vaccinated with them, he said.

“We expect to achieve full immunization by the end of 2021, which will make it possible for us to advance in the struggle against the new outbreak of the pandemic,” Mr. Diaz-Canel said.

Cuba has been especially hard hit recently by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which sent new case reports soaring over the summer and worsened shortages of basic medical supplies in Cuba. A lack of medicines, medical oxygen and coronavirus tests increased social tensions and prompted anti-government protestsin July. Mexico shipped supplies of oxygen to Cuba last month, and activists in the United States sent two million syringes to the island.

As proud as the Cuban government is of its vaccines, the shots have yet to receive approval from the World Health Organization. Data from clinical trials of the vaccines have yet to be published in international peer-reviewed journals.

Even so, Cuba’s claimed self-sufficiency in vaccinating against Covid-19 is conspicuous in the landscape of vaccination inequality around the world, where most of the vaccine doses made so far have gone to the most affluent nations, while many people in poorer countries have yet to get their first doses.

This month Cuba began vaccinating children as young as 2 against the coronavirus, making it the only country so far to immunize children that young.

The move came against the backdrop of prolonged closures of Cuba’s schools through most of the pandemic, which has generated enormous frustration among parents. Online learning is not a practical option in Cuba because of the high cost of internet access there.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/world/americas/covid-cuba-vaccine.html

 

 

 

Nearly 1 in 4 hospitals treating Covid in Afghanistan have shut down, the W.H.O. warns

By Lauren Katzenberg

 

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. director general, warned of an “imminent humanitarian catastrophe” as the country’s health care system struggles with a loss of foreign funding and dwindling supplies.CreditCredit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

 

Nearly one-quarter of the hospitals treating Covid-19 in Afghanistan have closed in recent weeks, and the country’s efforts to respond to the pandemic have declined, World Health Organization officials said Wednesday.

The W.H.O. issued an urgent warning on Wednesday, saying that Afghanistan is on the brink of “an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.”

The notice followed a recent visit to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where W.H.O. leaders met with the leadership of the Taliban, which is now in control of the country. The W.H.O. officials also met with United Nations partners, health care workers and patients.

“Cuts in donor support to the country’s largest health project, Sehatmandi, has left thousands of health facilities without funding for medical supplies and salaries for health staff,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the W.H.O., and Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

Roughly two-thirds of the country’s health facilities are part of Sehatmandi, a three-year, $600 million project administered by the World Bank and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the European Union, the World Bank and other donors.

Because funds for the project were funneled through the Ministry of Public Health, donors withdrew their support after the Taliban seized power. Now, only one-sixth of all Sehatmandi facilities are fully functional, according to the W.H.O.

“Many of these facilities have now reduced operations or shut down, forcing health providers to make hard decisions on who to save and who to let die,” the statement said.

Officials also said that nine of the 37 hospitals treating Covid-19 in Afghanistan have closed, and coronavirus surveillance, testing and vaccination efforts have contracted.

Afghanistan, which emerged from a surge in virus infections at the end of June, is starting to see cases rise again, this time involving the highly contagious Delta variant.

Before last month, the W.H.O. said, about 2.2 million people, or about 6 percent of Afghanistan’s population, had been vaccinated against Covid-19. But in recent weeks, the organization said, vaccination rates have slowed markedly, and some 1.8 million vaccine doses in the country remain unused.

The country’s acting health minister and last remaining holdover from the pre-Taliban Cabinet, Dr. Wahid Majrooh, stepped down on Tuesday.

Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s under secretary for emergency relief, said on Wednesday that he was releasing $45 million to help prevent Afghanistan’s health care system from collapsing.

“Medicines, medical supplies and fuel are running out in Afghanistan,” Mr. Griffiths said in a statement. “Cold chains are compromised. Essential health care workers are not being paid.”

On top of the threat of a public health crisis, new figures released by the World Food Program suggest that 95 percent of Afghans lack secure access to adequate food, a situation that could worsen in the winter, when many remote communities are likely to be cut off from outside support for several months.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/world/asia/afghanistan-covid-hospitals.html

 

 

 

Boosters for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients weren’t up for debate during a C.D.C. panel

By Apoorva Mandavilli and Benjamin Mueller

 

Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine labels.Credit...Dado Ruvic/Reuters

A committee of scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Thursday to recommend booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to many Americans who were fully inoculated with the same vaccine. The panel advised that those booster shots go to older Americans and people with certain medical conditions, but excluded those at risk because of their jobs.

But the panel was not asked to judge whether people who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines should receive Pfizer boosters. The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing data for a Moderna booster, but has not received an application from Johnson & Johnson for a booster of its vaccine.

Several experts nevertheless supported a mix-and-match strategy, and signaled that they would revisit the issue as new data emerge.

The advisers wrestled with the practicalities of endorsing a booster shot of Pfizer’s vaccine, but not the other two. Recipients of those vaccines may rightly feel resentful of being asked to wait if the evidence suggests they need boosters, they noted.

“I just don’t understand how, later this afternoon, we can say to people 65 and older, ‘You’re at risk for severe disease and death, but only half of you can protect yourselves right now,’” said Dr. Sarah Long, a pediatrician and infectious diseases expert at Drexel University College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

“It might be the right thing to do,” she said. “It just doesn’t sound like a good public health policy.”

Some experts seemed to suggest on Wednesday that it might be better to hold off on recommending any booster shots until recipients of all three vaccines could qualify for them.

Moderna’s authorization may arrive in a few days, or weeks. The company has applied for authorization of a booster carrying half the dosage given in the first two shots, which has delayed the F.D.A.’s deliberations.

Federal regulators have indicated that there was insufficient evidence for mixing first shots of the Moderna vaccine with a Pfizer booster, or vice versa.

 

Retrieed from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/science/moderna-johnson-covid-boosters.html

 

 

 

Brazil approaches 600,000 COVID deaths in second-deadliest outbreak

 

A healthcare worker shows the syringe to a woman after applying a dose of Sinovac's CoronaVac coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Cacique de Ramos, one of the most traditional carnival blocks of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil April 8, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

A healthcare worker shows the syringe to a woman after applying a dose of Sinovac's CoronaVac coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Cacique de Ramos, one of the most traditional carnival blocks of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil April 8, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

 

BRASILIA, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Brazil has had 24,611 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 648 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Thursday.

The South American country has now registered 21,308,178 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 592,964, according to ministry data, in the world's third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest after the United States.

As vaccination advances, the rolling 7-day average of COVID deaths has fallen to less than one fifth of the toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-approaches-600000-covid-deaths-second-deadliest-outbreak-2021-09-23/

 

 

 

Summary

 

· Coronavirus has caused male life expectancy in the UK to dropfor the first time since records began. A boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until he is 79 years old – a drop from 79.2 years for 2015-2017, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

· The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England has dropped to its lowest level since the end of June.

· Novavax has announced that it has applied to the World Health Organization for an emergency-use listing of its Covid-19 vaccine. The listing is a prerequisite for export to several countries participating in the Covax vaccine-sharing facility

· Covid-19 could resemble the common cold by spring next year as people’s immunity to the virus is boosted by vaccines and exposure, a leading British expert has said. Prof Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, said the UK was “over the worst”.

· Portugal will lift almost all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, allowing full occupancy in restaurants and cultural venues from 1 October, the prime minister, Antonio Costa, said on Thursday.

· Thailand is considering cutting hotel isolation requirements for vaccinated tourists in half to one week in a bid to attract foreign visitors again. It comes amid delays to plans to waive quarantine and reopen Bangkok and other tourist destinations from next month after the pandemic caused a collapse in the country’s tourism industry

· Covid deaths in Russia, where 820 people died from the virus in the last 24 hours, matched the all-time one-day high reached in August. Since the start of the pandemic, Russia has recorded 7,354,995 coronavirus cases.

· The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for those ages 65 and older and some high-risk Americans, paving the way for a quick rollout of the shots, Reuters reports.

 

Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/sep/24/coronavirus-live-news-fewer-than-4-of-africans-vaccinated-who-backs-regeneron-for-high-risk-patients?page=with:block-614d4f358f0808150b5f8cfe#block-614d4f358f0808150b5f8cfe