Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday, days after the notice of a lesser swap arrangement with Singapore, Australia is going to get 4 million doses of the Pfizer Inc coronavirus vaccine in a UK exchange deal.
In the following couple of weeks, the dosages are expected to reach Australia which will contribute to double Pfizer’s injections for September.
The letter’s authors report that the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines significantly waned over time. Both vaccines were granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, with vaccinations of the UC San Diego Health work force beginning the same month for health care workers with direct, patient-facing duties.
In the letter, the authors note that from March through June 2021 vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection was estimated to exceed 90 percent; by July, however, it had fallen to approximately 65 percent.
“The decline in effectiveness is not entirely surprising,” said co-senior author Francesca Torriani, MD, professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and program director of Infection Prevention and Clinical Epidemiology at UC San Diego Health.
“Clinical trial data suggested decreased effectiveness would occur several months after full vaccination, but our findings indicate that confronted by the delta variant, vaccine effectiveness for mildly symptomatic disease was considerably lower and waned six to eight months after completing vaccination.”
UC San Diego Health, with a work force of approximately 19,000, operates a robust SARS-CoV-2 testing program. If an employee reports even one mild symptom of COVID-19 during daily screening or an identified exposure, a test is triggered.
Then and now, UC San Diego Health has maintained rigorous, mandatory masking and transmission mitigation measures throughout its hospitals and clinical facilities. Diagnosed positive cases among health workers have universally been identified as community acquired.
In December 2020, workers at UC San Diego Health, like the population overall, began experiencing a surge of SARS-CoV-2 infections, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The situation improved significantly after UC San Diego Health began to inoculate employees using the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. By March 2021, 76 percent of workers were fully vaccinated, rising to 83 percent by July 2021.
Concomitant with increased vaccination coverage was a decline between March and June in the number of workers reporting at least one symptom of COVID-19 and a positive PCR test. That number declined to fewer than 30 employees per month.
In July 2021, however, cases among this highly vaccinated population began to rise again, coincident with the emerging dominance of the delta variant in San Diego and the ending of California’s masking mandate on June 15. By July, 125 workers had been diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 and unlike in previous months when approximately 20 percent of these cases involved vaccinated workers, the percentage had risen to 75 percent.
Notably, the vaccines still provide significant protection from severe infection outcomes, such as hospitalization and death. Among the UC San Diego Health employee cases documented, no hospitalizations were reported in vaccinated individuals and only one among unvaccinated persons.
“Unlike what was experienced with other variants, with the delta variant parents are frequently getting infected by their young children, ages 5 to 11,” said co-first author Lucy Horton, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and director of the UC San Diego Health COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing team. “Unvaccinated people are seven times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those who are fully vaccinated. More importantly, while children rarely need medical attention, unvaccinated adults are 32 times more likely to require hospitalization compared to those who are fully vaccinated.”
Vaccine effectiveness was linked to the passage of time. For workers diagnosed in July, those who became fully vaccinated in January and February had higher infection rates than those vaccinated later in March through May. The infection rate among unvaccinated persons has remained consistently higher than for any vaccinated group, although the difference in rates between the two groups has decreased over time.
“The dramatic change in vaccine effectiveness from June to July is likely due to a combination of factors,” said co-author Nancy Binkin, MD, MPH, professor of epidemiology in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. “It’s the emergence of the delta variant and waning immunity over time, compounded by the end of broad masking requirements and the resulting greater exposure risk throughout the community.”
Co-senior author Shira Abeles, MD, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases who has led the COVID-19 vaccination effort at UC San Diego Health, said the findings underscore the importance of rapidly reinstating key interventions, such as indoor masking and intensive testing strategies, plus continuing efforts to boost vaccination rates.
“Similar findings are being reported in other settings in the U.S. and internationally, and it is likely that booster doses will be necessary.”
Co-authors include: Jocelyn Keehner (co-first author), Louise C. Laurent, David Pride and Christopher A. Longhurst, all at UC San Diego.
Source: University of California – San Diego
A growing body of data now demonstrates the importance of both T cells and antibodies in the coordinated immune response against SARS-CoV-2. This method is a further boost to scientists who seek to routinely monitor and assess SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses in vaccinated or convalescent individuals, as well as to test and verify the effectiveness of vaccines.
“T cells play a vital role alongside antibodies in protecting people against COVID-19, but they are much harder to detect and measure,” said Dr Anthony Tanoto Tan, Senior Research Fellow with Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Programme and first author of the study. “Our research offers a feasible approach that can overcome the current limitations faced in detecting spike-specific T-cell responses, and will help better evaluate the protective role played by T cells in our immune system.”
For the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientists took blood samples from volunteers who were vaccinated against COVID-19, or who had been infected and then recovered from the disease. They then introduced small fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein directly into the blood samples. In response to these fragments, the T cells released chemical signals called cytokines, which are much easier to detect and measure than T cells, and are already being tracked to monitor T-cell activity for the diagnosis of diseases such as tuberculosis.
Building on that, the team showed that the test, called Cytokine Release Assay (CRA), can reliably identify and quantify specific T cells present in the blood of people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, or have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Working with different blood samples from more than 200 people, the researchers desmonstrated that the CRA test was as sensitive as existing methods used to find and measure T-cell activity.
“This discovery allows a rapid and large-scale expansion of studies to track T-cell activity across the world, while not requiring specialised or expensive equipment,” said Professor Antonio Bertoletti from Duke-NUS’ EID programme, the study’s corresponding author. “The study results confirm that the level of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in blood samples does not always correlate with the T-cell response. With this rapid test, we can help define the correlates of protection from T cells and antibodies for the development of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice-Dean for Research at Duke-NUS, said, “This important study advances our understanding of the human body’s immune response at a critical juncture in this pandemic. As validated in this research, repurposing the well-established CRA test to fast-track the evaluation of T-cell responses in COVID-inoculated or -convalescent patients adds a new dimension to vaccine strategies as we battle the threat of new and emergent variants.”
To bring this discovery to market, Duke-NUS has licensed the assay to Hyris, an innovation-based biotechnology company, which will leverage its Hyris SystemTM to further develop this rapid SARS-CoV-2 T-cell test for clinical use globally.
Source: Duke-NUS Medical School
India has authorised a novel COVID vaccination using circular DNA strands to boost the SARS-CoV-2 immune system. Researchers welcomed news that people throughout the world were granted clearance of the first DNA vaccination, saying that many additional DNA vaccines might soon become hot on their heels.
ZyCoV-D, which is administered into the skin without an injection, has been found to be 67% protective against symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials, and will likely start to be administered in India this month. Although the efficacy is not particularly high compared to that of many other COVID-19 vaccines, the fact that it is a DNA vaccine is significant, say researchers.
It is proof of the principle that DNA vaccines work and can help in controlling the pandemic, says Peter Richmond, a paediatric immunologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth. “This is a really important step forward in the fight to defeat COVID-19 globally, because it demonstrates that we have another class of vaccines that we can use.”
Close to a dozen DNA vaccines against COVID-19 are in clinical trials globally, and at least as many again are in earlier stages of development. DNA vaccines are also being developed for many other diseases.
“If DNA vaccines prove to be successful, this is really the future of vaccinology” because they are easy to manufacture, says Shahid Jameel, a virologist at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India.
The urgency of combating COVID-19 has fast-tracked the development of vaccines that use genetic technology, such as messenger RNA and DNA vaccines, says David Weiner, director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
RNA vaccines were quicker to show strong immune responses in clinical trials; they have now been delivered to hundreds of millions of people around the world. But DNA vaccines have a number of benefits, because they are easy to produce and the finished products are more stable than mRNA vaccines, which typically require storage at very low temperatures.
ZyCoV-D was developed by Indian pharmaceutical firm Zydus Cadila, headquartered in Ahmedabad. On 20 August, India’s drug regulator authorized the vaccine for people aged 12 and older. The efficacy figure of 67% came from trials involving more than 28,000 participants, which saw 21 symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in the vaccinated group and 60 among people who received a placebo.
ZyCoV-D contains circular strands of DNA known as plasmids, which encode the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, together with a promoter sequence for turning the gene on. Once the plasmids enter the nuclei of cells, they are converted into mRNA, which travels to the main body of the cell, the cytoplasm, and is translated into the spike protein itself. The body’s immune system then mounts a response against the protein, and produces tailored immune cells that can clear future infections. Plasmids typically degrade within weeks to months, but the immunity remains.
Both DNA and mRNA vaccines have been under development since the 1990s, says Weiner. The challenge for DNA vaccines is that they need to make it all the way to the cell nucleus, unlike mRNA vaccines, which just need to get to the cytoplasm, says Jameel. So, for a long time, DNA vaccines struggled to induce potent immune responses in clinical trials, which is why they had been approved for use as vaccines only in animals, such as horses, until now.
To solve this problem, ZyCoV-D is deposited under the skin, as opposed to deep in muscle tissue. The area under the skin is rich in immune cells that gobble up foreign objects, such as vaccine particles, and process them. “This helps capture the DNA far more efficiently than in the muscle,” Jameel says. Unusually, the vaccine is delivered using a needle-free device pressed against the skin, which creates a fine, high-pressure stream of fluid that punctures the surface and is less painful than an injection.
But despite being more potent than previous DNA vaccines, ZyCoV-D requires a minimum of three doses to achieve its initial efficacy. This is likely to add to the logistical challenge of administering the vaccine during the current pandemic, says Jameel.
Although ZyCoV-D’s efficacy seems to be lower than the 90% or higher achieved by some mRNA vaccines, the figures are not comparable, says Jameel. The ZyCoV-D trials in India earlier this year were conducted while the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was the dominant variant in circulation, whereas earlier mRNA vaccine trials were conducted when less transmissible variants were circulating. “The efficacy is essentially against the Delta variant, so that is pretty good,” he says.
Some researchers have criticized a lack of transparency in the approval process, because no late-stage trial results have yet been published. Zydus Cadila says the trial is still under way and it will submit the full analysis for publication shortly. The company says the first doses will start to be administered in India in September and it plans to produce up to 50 million doses by early next year.
With 45,352 people testing positive for COVID-19, India’s total tally of cases rose to 3,29,03,289, while active cases have increased to 3,99,778, according to Union health ministry data updated on Friday.
The death toll has climbed to 4,39,895 with 366 more fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The number of active cases comprise 1.22% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 97.45%, ministry said.
It said that active cases increased by 10,195 in a span of 24 hours.
The weekly positivity rate has been recorded at 2.66%. It has been below 3% for the last 70 days, it said.
The number of people who have recovered from the disease has increased to 3,20,63,616.
On the Covid vaccination front, a total of 67.09 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under Nationwide Vaccination Drive.
The surge in cases has come when the government has expressed concern about the virus spreading from the most affected Kerala state and the start of the festival season.
In October, a Phase 3 testing may be undertaken with Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Biological E, which may initiate its coronavirus disease vaccine ‘Corbevax’ (Covid-19).
Niti Aayog Member (Health) Dr VK Paul said on Thursday results were awaited and the company had committed to supply a significant quantity of the vaccine by the end of the year.
“Stockpile is being produced. We should wait for the results. We hope it’ll be in the next month or two. They’ve made a broad commitment that they’ll supply a significant amount by year-end,” Dr Paul was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Corbevax, the second jab against the virus being made in the country, is an RBD protein sub-unit vaccine. On Wednesday, the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) gave permission to Biological E to conduct phase 2/3 clinical trials of Corbevax on children between five-18 years with certain conditions.
The permission to the pharmaceutical company was given on the basis of recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on Covid-19.Trials will be conducted in 10 locations across India.
Last month, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya met Biological E’s managing director Mahima Dalta regarding the progress of the vaccine’s development and assured of full support from the Centre.
In June, the Union health ministry had said Biological E would supply 30 crore doses of Corbevax to India by December. The Centre has paid an advance of ₹1,500 crore to the company for the same.
“These vaccine doses will be manufactured and stockpiled by M/s Biological-E from August-December 2021. For this purpose, the Union Ministry of Health would be making an advance payment of ₹1,500 crore to M/s Biological-E,” the ministry said in a statement in June.
Article by: Dr Baldeep Singh, Pediatrician, Founder-Director of Ludhiana’s Deep Hospital.
The second wave of COVID-19 has seen a rise in infection rates amongst children. Some health experts think that children will be more susceptible to the third wave of COVID-19. This has left parents looking for information on how to protect themselves and their children from the anticipated threat.
According to an analysis done by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, it shows that children accounted for roughly 15 percent of all newly reported COVID-19 cases across the US, till the first week of August. Approximately 94,000 child cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, a 31 percent increase over the roughly 72,000 cases reported a week earlier.
Hospitalization of children with COVID-19 infection has seen a surge in India as well during the second wave, this is mainly because family members have been infected and transmitted it to children. During a media briefing in June, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS-Delhi shared that, 60-70 percent of the children hospitalised due to COVID-19 have had co-morbidities, which underlines the importance of building a strong immune system and a healthy lifestyle.
In the last few weeks, India’s COVID-19 caseload has also improved, with the recovery rate currently standing at 97.45 percent. As active cases are reducing, certain states are gearing up to open schools and colleges. Schools in Punjab have already re-opened and Maharashtra will be opening them up for students from August 17. As schools re-open, parents need to be all the more cautious and prepared. In the meanwhile, parents need to curtail outdoor movement.
Reducing outdoor movement
Parents should limit moving out of the house unless it is really necessary. Encourage children to remain indoors, as they are as susceptible to the virus as adults. Being confined to our homes has made our daily routine mundane, taking a toll on the lives of children as well. Parents and caregivers can break the monotony by involving the children in household activities. These activities will also help them boost self-confidence, improve focus and will keep them physically active.
Protocols to follow:
Boosting immunity with nutrition
Studies have proven that people who are immunocompromised or have a weakened immunity are more prone to being infected with COVID-19. The best defence against it is to build a strong immune system. To boost immunity, a nutritious and active lifestyle is paramount. Foods rich in fibre, protein, vitamins, and minerals can help boost immunity. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are a good source of vitamins, minerals, and support digestion, metabolism, and overall wellness. It eventually helps to ward off seasonal diseases and remain active.
The consumption of ice-creams, carbonated beverages, and junk food should be limited as they have little to zero nutritional value. Parents need to take the initiative to guide their children imbibing a healthy and balanced diet.
Certain tips to keep in mind while planning your child’s meal:
Prioritise mental health
The current crisis has dealt a devastating blow to mental well-being. It has impacted adults – with a harder impact on children and youth. With the schools and colleges shut for months on end, children have been confined to their homes and have not been able to interact, play or mingle with friends and peers. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought about grief, fear, uncertainty, social isolation, increased screen time, and parental fatigue, harming the mental well-being of children.
Parents and caregivers need to communicate with children to know about their physical health as well as their mental well-being and try to alleviate their anxiety and stress as much as possible.
Points to consider for the mental well-being of children/adolescents:
As children gear up to return to schools with the looming threat of the COVID-19 third wave, parents need to be cautious and alert. Parents should adhere to COVID-19 protocols at all times and encourage their children to always wear a mask, follow social distancing, and sanitise frequently. As and when vaccines are made available for children and adolescents, they should be vaccinated.
This is an overview of several recent COVID-19 research. They include research which requires more investigation to confirm the findings and which must be validated by peer review.
The levels of antibodies following modern vaccination are higher.
The mRNA vaccine from Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) induces higher levels of antibodies against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 than the similar vaccine from Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and partner BioNTech SE , Belgian researchers have found, although what this means for their efficacy is not clear. Soon after receiving their second shot, the 688 healthcare workers who got Moderna’s vaccine had antibody levels roughly twice as high as the 959 who received the Pfizer/BioNTech product, regardless of their ages, doctors at a Belgian medical center reported.
This held true even after accounting for individual risk factors, and regardless of whether participants had previously been infected with the virus, the researchers reported on Monday in JAMA. Antibodies are just one component of the immune system’s defenses, however. The study cannot determine whether one vaccine is more effective at preventing infection or illness, or whether the antibodies induced stay longer in the blood before disappearing. Those questions, and others, require further investigation, the researchers said.
Arthritis drug adds to benefit of steroids in severe illness.
Vaccine poses low risk for adults with high-risk allergies.
Highly allergic adults can safely receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, a new study suggests. Among the 8,102 patients with allergies in the Israeli study, 95% received the shots in routine settings because their risk of a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine was low, and no such reactions were reported. The remaining 429 patients, who were considered to be highly allergic, received the vaccines under careful supervision and were observed for two hours afterward. Nine had allergic reactions, including three who showed signs of potentially life-threatening anaphylaxis.
All responded to treatment with epinephrine and no one had to be hospitalized, according to a report published on Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. An editorial published with the study said lessons from this study of allergic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine are likely “generalizable to the Moderna” shot as well.
The generic blood cancer tablet has been released in Canada by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. and Natco Pharma Ltd.
According to their exchange filings, the Canadian companies of both medication producers have introduced the Revlimid generic lenalidomide capsules. The usage of this medicine is for the treatment of multiple myeloma — plasma-cell cancer and the second most often utilised kind of blood carcinogen.
The pills are available in 2.5mg, 5mg, 10mg, 15 mg, 20mg, and 25 mg dosages, both reddy-lenalidomide and naturelenalidomide, according to the application.
Sales of Revlimid across the globe are worth $7.6 billion (Rs 55,540.1 crore), of which Canada accounts for $400-500 million (about Rs 2,923.2-3,654 crore), according to Abdulkader Puranwala, research analyst at Anand Rathi.
Glenn Ikeda, chief executive officer at Natco Pharma (Canada) Inc., and Vinod Ramachandran, vice president and general manager at Dr. Reddy’s Lab Canada, in the filing, said their launches would provide an accessible treatment option and alleviate the financial burden by providing affordable medicines to myeloma patients, as well as public and private players.
According to Joe Kamel, registered pharmacist at Pure Health Pharmacy in Barrie, Ontario, as a self-administered capsule, lenalidomide is an important therapy for Canadian patients whose lives are critically impacted by a variety of myeloma-related events and symptoms.
Natco Pharma, in its filing, said about 7,400 Canadians are living with or are in remission from myeloma and every day, nine are diagnosed with the disease. Shares of Dr. Reddy’s and Natco Pharma were trading 2.52% and 4.62% higher as of 1 p.m. on Thursday compared with a 0.66% gain in the Nifty 50.