COVID-19 vaccine development pipeline gears up

[gracielle]

GSK, CureVac team up to develop vaccine against COVID-19 variants

Britain's GlaxoSmithKline and German biotech firm CureVac have teamed up in a 150 million euro ($180 million) deal to develop a COVID-19 vaccine from next year that could target several variants with one shot.

www.reuters.com

Recovered COVID patients likely protected for at least six months, study finds

Almost all people previously infected with COVID-19 have high levels of antibodies for at least six months that are likely to protect them from reinfection with the disease, results of a major UK study showed on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

 

[Caribbean Cool]

Has anyone actually been vaccinated here in B.A. and where?

 

[antipodean]

Has anyone actually been vaccinated here in B.A. and where?

Highly unlikely any expat here will meet the governments' current criteria - at the moment they are still working their way through front line health and other "essential" workers. No private vaccines are available in Argentina. Keep in mind that to date only a few hundred thousand doses have landed on these shores of 45 million.

 

[gracielle]

El COVID-19 rara vez se propaga a través de superficies: ¿por qué seguimos desinfectando?

El coronavirus puede permanecer en los pomos de las puertas y otras superficies, pero estas no son una fuente importante de infección, advierte una investigación publicada en la revista científica Nature

www.infobae.com

03 February 2021
COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces: why do we keep disinfecting? Coronavirus can remain on doorknobs and other surfaces, but these are not a major source of infection, warns research published in the journal Scientific Nature.

....Armed with year-long data on coronavirus cases, researchers say one fact is clear. It is the people, not the surfaces, that should be the main concern. Evidence of over-propagation events, where many people are infected at once, usually in a crowded indoor space, clearly points to airborne transmission, Marr says. "You have to come up with some really complicated scenarios to explain superpropagation events with contaminated surfaces," he explains.

Hand washing is essential, Marr says, because superficial transmission cannot be ruled out. But it's more important to upgrade ventilation systems or install air purifiers than to sterilize surfaces, he says. "If we've already paid attention to the air and have some extra time and resources, then yes, cleaning those high-touch surfaces could be helpful," he says.

Homes can relax, too, Pickering says. Quarantining food or sanitizing all surfaces is going too far. "That's a lot of work and it's probably not reducing your exposure that much," he says. Instead, reasonable hand hygiene as well as wearing a mask and social distancing to reduce exposure from close contacts is a better place to focus efforts....

 

[gracielle]

Coronavirus: Asignaron a la Argentina 2,2 millones de dosis por Covax

Coronavirus: Asignaron a la Argentina 2,2 millones de dosis por Covax

www.lanacion.com.ar

3 February 2021....by Fabiola Czubaj
Coronavirus: 2.2 million doses assigned to Argentina by Covax. The World Health Organization (WHO) released today the first figures of the doses of the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines that are being assigned to the participating countries of the international Covax system.

In this first forecast, Argentina appears with 2,275,200 units assigned of the Oxford/AstraZeneca product for the first semester of the year, subject to the completion of the process of including the vaccine in the list of emergency use of the WHO. As indicated, this could happen in the next few days or weeks, according to the “latest reviews” in progress.

The document details a first allocation to 145 countries for the first two quarters with 240 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine produced at the Serum Institute of India (SII) and another 96 million doses included in an agreement that is closing with the Gavi Alliance for Vaccines laboratory, which coordinates the Covax Initiative with the WHO and the Coalition for the Promotion of Innovations for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI). The laboratory producing the doses initially planned for the country is SK Bioscience.

In addition, it includes the allocation to 18 countries of a first batch of 1.2 million doses in the coming weeks of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has already met the two requirements for joining Covax: closing an agreement of provision and be prequalified by WHO or evaluated by the international organization and included in the list of products for emergency use, as anticipated by LA NACION. Among those countries, which applied last month for an exceptional allocation of Pfizer's product, four appear from the region: Peru (117,000 doses), El Salvador (51,480), Colombia (117,000) and Bolivia (92,430).

For now, the preliminary allocation of 337.2 million doses of both products covers, according to the consortium that manages the Covax Initiative, 3.3% of the population of 145 states. "This coincides with the goal of reaching at least 3% coverage of the population in all countries in the first half of the year, which is enough to protect the most vulnerable groups, such as health workers", indicated when spreading the forecast.

Last November, the Minister of Health of the Nation, Ginés González García, had announced the arrival of a greater number of doses through this access system: “We have already paid for 9 million vaccines through Covax that we would have available in the month of February ”, he had said.

The delay in the process of incorporation into the WHO emergency use list of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as explained last week by officials from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), is due to the fact that its production is decentralized. “When a product submitted for inclusion in the list of products for emergency use has been evaluated through other emergency mechanisms by a rigorous authority that shares its information with the prequalification program, WHO does not intend to duplicate the work ”, it was specified to LA NACION.

The 192 countries that joined the Covax system for the acquisition of vaccines for Covid-19 would begin to receive a part of the reserved doses in the first half of the year, with the highest proportion of deliveries only in the second part of 2021, according to the detail of distribution planned so far provided by the GAVI Alliance to this medium. So far, 1.640 million doses are insured by agreements until December of this year: 145 million would be available in March for distribution. Between 15 and 20 million would be the volume that will begin to arrive in Latin America.

"We do not have the exact date for any country," said Jarbas Barbosa da Silva, PAHO's deputy director, this afternoon, regarding when the doses could begin to arrive in the region. In a press conference via Zoom, the official indicated that the availability of any vaccine through Covax depends on the producers meeting the conditions for WHO approval for emergency use. “The latest revisions are pending, which is the conclusion of the evaluation of the WHO prequalification team, for the AstraZeneca product and that process would be completed in two or three weeks”, he added.

As for the 40 million doses for which Pfizer closed an agreement with Covax administrators, one million would already be available for distribution this month, while the rest would only be available starting April. For now, Argentina has no assigned units of this product.

 

[gracielle]

¿Quién pagó las vacunas del plan Covax para la Argentina?

¿Quién pagó las vacunas del plan Covax para la Argentina?

www.lanacion.com.ar

3 February 2021....by Camila Dolabjian
Who paid for the vaccines of the Covax plan for Argentina?
Today in the afternoon, the arrival of 2.2 million vaccines to Argentina was confirmed through the international Covax system. The doses to be received are less than a third of those agreed. The contract provides for 9,070,000 inoculations.

The payment ("upfront payment") required by Covax has already been made, but not by the National Treasury. Who disbursed the 28 million dollars was the Inter-American Development Bank. In a direct payment to the supplier, the BID financed the vaccines purchased and took care of possible imbalances in the amounts derived from exchange fluctuations to cover the doses. Between the BID and Argentina a loan was signed as part of a series of transfers that the bank was already making (Loan 3772). This plan ends on May 31st.

"It is not a project in which they give us the money and we return it as is. They are not transfers, but they only finance us to meet certain objectives. In this case it is a multifaceted project that includes the cancer institute, medicines and now vaccines. A readjustment was made to finance the purchase of vaccines, "they explained from the Ministry of Health. The BID not only financed Argentina in the purchase of vaccines. According to the Bank, in 2020 alone close to 1 billion dollars were allocated to the acquisition of inoculations for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Argentina received less than 3% of the funds assigned to this undertaking.

The contract between Argentina and the Fund for the nine million vaccines involved a total cost of US$28,117,000, that is, US$3.20 per dose. In addition, the Ministry of Health signed a clause that would allow the purchase of more vaccines in the future. "It should be noted that this Ministry has resolved to opt for the Optional Purchase Agreement modality provided by the COVAX Initiative, in order to eventually expand the coverage capacity," as detailed in the purchase request.

"In accordance with the terms and conditions provided by GAVI, adherence to this mechanism will ensure Argentina a provision of doses of 10% of its target population," state official documents between the parties, which suggest the possibility of using the vaccines for a particular group. The Ministry does not recognize that it will be used for a specific population. "It is an error. The vaccines received do not go to a particular population, but will accompany the vaccination campaign," they declared.

Regarding the missing vaccines, there is no certainty when they will arrive. On the contrary, Argentina recognized the discretion in delivery times in the contract with Covax. "Participant acknowledges and agrees that Gavi has the discretion to manage, with each specific manufacturer, the delivery time of approved vaccines." However, official sources suggest that the nine million doses will arrive before July.

 

[gracielle]

UPDATE: 3 February 2021

After a Rocky Start, Novavax Vaccine Could Be Here by Summer (Published 2021)

Even with two other vaccines authorized, Novavax is having no trouble recruiting volunteers for its U.S. trial. If all goes well, the U.S. could see 110 million doses in June.

www.nytimes.com

 

[gracielle]

Coronavirus: ¿cuántas vacunas recibirá Argentina en lo inmediato? | A las dosis comprometidas de AstraZeneca, Covax/OMS y Sputnik V, se sumará una partida extra de 1.200.000 dosis de AstraZeneca

El gobierno firmó contrato para asegurar la llegada de una partida extra: 580 mil dosis en febrero y una cifra equivalente en marzo, que llegarán de AstraZeneca. Además están las dosis asignadas de Covax. A esas deben sumarse las Sputnik V que enviará ...

www.pagina12.com.ar

4 February 2021
To the committed doses of AstraZeneca, Covax/OMS and Sputnik V, will be added an extra batch of 1,200,000 doses of AstraZeneca. Coronavirus: how many vaccines will Argentina receive immediately?

The government signed a contract to ensure the arrival of an extra batch: 580,000 doses in February and an equivalent figure in March, which will arrive from AstraZeneca. Then there are the assigned doses of Covax. To these must be added the Sputnik V that will be sent by the Gamaleya Center, which will regulate its productive rhythm in the middle of the month, and the remaining AstraZeneca that will land in March. Details are lacking as to the agreement with China.

The government negotiated the arrival in February of an extra 580,000 doses of AstraZeneca / Oxford, and 580,000 more in March, which will come from the Serum Institute of India. The contract has already been signed. They would begin to arrive starting next week and the information was provided by the Laboratory itself. This item is in addition to the one that the biotechnology company promised to send as of March (22.4 million doses) which will arrive through the Covax mechanism....

....It is also expected that in the coming days an agreement with local companies to carry out the technology transfer process can be concluded and that Sputnik V can be produced in domestic laboratories. This procedure is complex because it depends on the installed capacities and, although Argentina has shown to have excellent infrastructure and human resources for this (the mAbxience laboratory is reliable proof), installing a plant would take a while. It could work as a long-term plan, since it is difficult to start scaling up production but when it is achieved, as stated by the Secretary for Access to Health, Carla Vizzotti, a “virtuous circle” is set in motion.

The conflict that currently involves the availability of the vaccine could be reversed in a short time. Then, when pharmaceutical companies start producing at a good pace, the challenge will be logistical again. The most optimistic actors assure that there will be vaccines and the problem will lie in inoculation at scale. By that time, the provinces should be prepared to immunize as many people as possible in the shortest time possible. It will be vital that a large part of the population agrees to be vaccinated, because that will be the only way to achieve the herd effect. It is estimated that when 70% of the population is immunized, it will be possible to stop the spread of Sars CoV-2 and return - if it is the general desire - to "the old normality".

 

[antipodean]

Alberto Fernández no acepta el precio de la vacuna china y aguarda un gesto de Xi Jinping para cerrar el acuerdo

A pocas horas de la firma del contrato con Sinopharm, la negociación se empantanó por las exigencias del régimen comunista respecto al valor de las dosis, la cantidad final prevista en el contrato comercial y la secuencia de pagos antes del envío desde Beijing a Buenos Aires

www.infobae.com

 

[gracielle]

UPDATE: 4 February 2021

Vaccine passports: path back to normality or problem in the making?

Governments and developers around the world are exploring the potential use of "vaccine passports" as a way of reopening the economy by identifying those protected against the coronavirus.

www.reuters.com