Coronavirus Breaking News

The Republic of Vietnam National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control announced on January 17, 2021, the country had gone 47 days without a single community infection case of COVID-19.

The Committee ordered subordinate levels to control borders to prevent illegal entrants strictly to maintain this pace on January 15th. Those who enter Viet Nam by land must be subject to mandatory quarantine at concentrated camps managed by the Army and shall not be required to pay quarantine accommodation fees. Anyone who detects strange people or those likely to have returned from foreign countries need to report to local authorities.

The country’s patient total stands, 693 are local infections, while the rest are imported cases. And there have been 35 fatalities related to COVID-19 during the year-long pandemic.

On January 12, 2021, volunteers got their first shots of the Nanocovax vaccine candidate 75mcg dose. The phase one clinical trials of Nanocovax is expected to finish in February. Nanocovax is one of the four COVID-19 vaccines under development in Vietnam.

The Institute of Vaccines is developing the other three vaccines and Medical Biologicals, Vaccine, Biological Production Company No. 1 (Vabiotech), and the Center for Research and Production of Vaccines Biologicals (Polyvac), says the government.

Moderna, Inc. announced the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, Swissmedic, has authorized the COVID-19 Moderna Vaccine in Switzerland. The authorization is given according to the ordinary approvals procedure. It is based on a rolling submission of data and the totality of scientific evidence shared by the Company, including a data analysis from the pivotal Phase 3 clinical study announced on November 30, 2020.

With this authorization, the Swiss Federal Government will secure 7.5 million doses of the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, with the first deliveries are expected to begin in Switzerland in January 2021.

Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, stated in a press release issued on January 12, 2021, “Switzerland has played a critical role in Moderna’s history since our early days, and it means a lot to us that we can now provide a highly effective vaccine to help protect the citizens of Switzerland.”

Moderna has also received authorization from regulatory authorities in the USA, Canada, Israel, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Additional regulatory authorizations are currently under review in other countries and by the World Health Organization.

Pakistan’s Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) announced it had “granted emergency use authorization to AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine,” Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, Dr. Faisal Sultan’s office confirmed to Gulf News on January 16, 2021.

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 (AZD1222) coronavirus vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that has been genetically changed so that it can't grow in humans.

Pakistan previously announced it would provide COVID-19 vaccines free of charge to its citizens. Pakistan’s frontline healthcare workers would be at the top of the vaccine priority list, followed by people over 65 years of age.

Additionally, Pakistan has enrolled in the COVAX Global Alliance for vaccine immunization, and expects to receive around 50 million coronavirus vaccines, Dr. Sultan added.

'COVAX is necessary because without it there is a very real risk that the majority of people in the world will go unprotected against SARS-CoV-2, and this would allow the virus and its impact to continue unabated, states GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) reported 12,279,180 first-doses vaccines had been administered in the USA as of January 15, 2021. The number of people receiving 2 vaccine doses has reached 1,610,524.

From a productivity perspective, the state of Texas leads with 2,105,600 vaccines distributed, and 1,160,242 administered.

Acting US Defense Secretary Christopher Miller stated: 'On behalf of Operation Warp Speed, I am proud to report that today, 816,900 additional vaccines were distributed to the American people. Today’s great work brings the total number of vaccine doses distributed to 30,303,375.'

The CDC added 'viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time. Scientists are working to learn more about how easily the new SARS-CoV-2 variants might spread, whether they could cause more severe illness and whether currently authorized vaccines will protect people against them.'

'At this time, there is no evidence that these coronavirus variants cause more severe illness or increased risk of death,' affirmed the CDC.

A new study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) found the diabetes drug metformin was associated with a threefold decrease in mortality in COVID-19 patients with Type 2 diabetes.

After controlling for other covariates, age, and gender, metformin use reduced fatalities with an odds ratio of 0.33 for Type 2 diabetes subjects, compared with those who did not take metformin, concluded these UAB researchers on January 13, 2021.

“This beneficial effect remained, even after correcting for age, sex, race, obesity, and hypertension or chronic kidney disease and heart failure,” added Anath Shalev, M.D., director of UAB’s Comprehensive Diabetes Center and leader of the study, in a press statement.

Metformin helps control the amount of glucose (sugar) in your blood. It decreases the amount of glucose you absorb from your food and the amount of glucose made by your liver. Metformin also increases your body's response to insulin, a natural substance that controls the amount of glucose in the blood states MedlinePlus.

The NEJM published a collection of resources on COVID-19 vaccines, including frequently asked questions and commentary written by Paul Sax, M.D., a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an infectious disease specialist. Dr. Sax offers concise and engaging answers to clinicians’ questions about COVID-19 vaccinations, and the questions and concerns patients will raise.

A recent FAQ published by the NEJM and written by Dr. Sax on January 11, 2021, asked: Should pregnant or breastfeeding women receive the vaccine?

'Although pregnant and breastfeeding women were not enrolled in the COVID-19 vaccine trials and as a result, there are limited data about safety, the U.S. CDC advised on January 7, 2021, that pregnant and lactating women should be offered the vaccine and may choose to be vaccinated.'

'There is no theoretical reason why mRNA vaccines would be harmful to the mother during pregnancy, to a developing fetus, or a breastfeeding infant. Also, reassuring is that gestating rats receiving the Moderna vaccine did not demonstrate any safety concerns related to fetal or embryonal development, concluded Dr. Sax.

This view was recently shared by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Raffaele Gianotti, a dermatopathologist with the University of Milan, said 'SARS-CoV-2 had been found in the 25-year-old woman’s preserved skin tissue from November 2019. She was misdiagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder but could now be Italy’s COVID-19 “patient zero”, reported the SCMP on January 13, 2021.

These researchers analyzed skin biopsies of patients from Milan, Italy, in July 2020, with dermatoses and positive PCR swabs for SARS‐CoV‐2 at different infection stages. The test results were compared to skin biopsies of non‐diagnosed COVID-19 patients with dermatoses who were at high‐risk of COVID‐19 infection.

“Our patient could represent the oldest case in the literature of detection of the coronavirus on tissue samples,” Gianotti and his collaborators in a peer-reviewed paper published in the British Journal of Dermatology on January 7, 2021.

A newer paper reported in November 2020 the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain-specific antibodies in blood samples of asymptomatic Italian individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020.