Unvaccinated
UNICEF to supply AU states 220 million coronavirus vaccines
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has signed an agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV to supply up to 220 million doses of the J&J single-dose vaccine to all 55 member-states of the African Union (AU) by the end of 2022. Some 35 million doses are to be delivered by the end of this year, UNICEF stated in a statement issued on Thursday in New York. The agreement, between UNICEF and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, will help implement the Advance Purchase Commitment (APC) signed between the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and Janssen last March. That agreement secured an option to order another 180 million doses, bringing the maximum access up to a total of 400 million doses by the end of 2022. The AU established AVAT in November 2020 to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the African continen...
Israeli study: South African coronavirus variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine
The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit. But among patient...
WHO urges fairness in coronavirus vaccine access for Africa
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for fairness in access to Covid-19 vaccines to widen the reach in Africa. The WHO said on Thursday that while vaccines had been delivered through the global partnership Covax, current global supply constraints could mean a critical proportion of people remain unvaccinated for months. “While some high-income countries are seeking to vaccinate their entire populations, many in Africa are struggling to sufficiently cover even their high-risk groups,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa. “Acquiring Covid-19 vaccines must not be a competition. Fair access will benefit all and not just some of us,” his statement added. The WHO said vaccine doses have not yet arrived in 10 African countries. So far, the continent has admini...
