Vaccine studies offer new hope as WHO warns on Africa
LONDON, United Kingdom — Two studies offered new hope of a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus on Monday, as the World Health Organization warned about a possible acceleration of the disease in Africa.
Seven months after COVID-19 was first identified in China and has since killed more than 600,000 people worldwide and battered economies, there is growing alarm over fresh outbreaks of the disease.
Until recently, Africa had remained relatively unscathed by the pandemic compared to other parts of the world.
But the situation has become increasingly worrying, particularly in South Africa, where the death toll passed 5,000 mark and the number of infections reached 350,000 at the weekend.
And the WHO's emergencies chief Michael Ryan told a virtual news conference in Geneva that the situation in South Africa could be seen as "a warning" for what the rest of the continent might have in store.
"I am very concerned right now that we are beginning to see an acceleration of disease in Africa," he said.
'Promising option'
Meanwhile, as European leaders in Brussels struggled to salvage a 750-billion-euro coronavirus aid package for the EU, two studies published in The Lancet medical journal appear to show progress towards a vaccine.
One trial among more than 1,000 adults in Britain found that a vaccine induced "strong antibody and T cell immune responses" against the coronavirus.
A separate trial in China involving more than 500 people showed most had developed widespread antibody immune response.
"If our vaccine is effective it is a promising option as these types of vaccine can be manufactured at large scale," said co-author Sarah Gilbert from the University of Oxford.
British biotech firm Synairgen also said on Monday a randomised trial of an aerosol-based treatment shows it could drastically reduce the number of new coronavirus patients dying of the disease or requiring intensive care.
Europe has been the worst-hit continent by the pandemic with more than 200,000 deaths, but European Union leaders remain bitterly split on how to help member countries like Italy and Spain, which have suffered the highest death tolls, but which have the heaviest debt burdens.
On a fourth day of a summit marked by furious rows between the 27 countries, EU Council chief Charles Michel said Monday he believed a deal was in reach.
"I know that the last steps are always the most difficult, but I'm confident," Michel told reporters.
"I think that even if it is difficult, even if it will be important to continue to work, I think and I am convinced that an agreement is possible."
Trump U-turn on masks?
In the United States -- the worst-hit country in the world with more than 60,000 new cases reported daily for six days -- president Donald Trump, who for months refused to encourage mask wearing as a way to combat the coronavirus, tweeted a picture of himself with his face covered and touted his patriotism.
"We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance," Trump wrote.
"There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!"
With close to 3.8 million cases and more than 140,000 deaths, American authorities are struggling to contain the surge and Trump has been criticised for his response to the crisis.
New restrictions
Many countries in the continent had largely brought their outbreaks under control and were considering further easing of restrictions before fresh clusters were detected.
Governments are struggling to balance public health concerns against the need to open up economies crippled by months of virus lockdowns.
France has made face masks compulsory in public indoor spaces, Spain asked millions to stay at home again, while the German state of Bavaria said it would soon offer free virus tests at airports.
Spain's Catalan regional government has urged residents of Barcelona and its suburbs to leave their homes only for essential tasks in a bid to slow a new outbreak.
On Monday, Spain's southeast Murcia region also closed bars and clubs without terraces, limited group gatherings and restricted visits to retirement homes.
French authorities have reported 400 to 500 active outbreak clusters but there are no signs of an imminent "second wave," Health Minister Olivier Veran said Monday.
But an anti-mask demonstration in London on Sunday highlighted the challenge still facing governments and health experts, despite the mounting COVID-19 toll.
Dozens gathered to protest the face mask requirement in England's shops and supermarkets, many of them holding banners with widely discredited conspiracy theories -- such as coronavirus prevention measures being used for "mind control".
Despite the vocal and stubborn opposition to lockdowns and face masks in some parts of the world, they remain among the few options for authorities to control new outbreaks in the absence of a vaccine.
There was grim evidence of how quickly the virus can spread over the weekend, with Iran's president saying an estimated 25 million people in the country have already been infected.
While Hong Kong's daily case count of 108 on Sunday was far below other parts of the world, city authorities tightened distancing measures further, pointing to the fear of uncontrolled infections. — with AFP bureaus
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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