World Health Organization
UN endorses world’s 1st malaria vaccine as ‘historic moment’
The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the world’s first malaria vaccine and said it should be given to children across Africa in the hope that it will spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “a historic moment” after a meeting in which two of the U.N. health agency’s expert advisory groups recommended the step.
“Today’s recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent, which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease. And we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa director.
WHO said its decision was based largely on results from ongoing research in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that tracked more than 800,000 children who have received the vaccine since 2019.
The vaccine, known as Mosquirix, was developed by GlaxoSmithKline in 1987. While it’s the first to be authorized, it does face challenges: The vaccine is only about 30% effective, it requires up to four doses, and its protection fades after several months.
Still, scientists say the vaccine could have a major impact against malaria in Africa, home to most of the world’s more than 200 million cases and 400,000 deaths per year.
Read Also: What to know about malaria drug and coronavirus treatment
“This is a huge step forward,” said Julian Rayner, director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, who was not part of the WHO decision. “It’s an imperfect vaccine, but it will still stop hundreds of thousands of children from dying.”
Rayner said the vaccine’s impact on the spread of the mosquito-borne disease was still unclear, but pointed to those developed for the coronavirus as an encouraging example.
“The last two years have given us a very nuanced understanding of how important vaccines are in saving lives and reducing hospitalizations, even if they don’t directly reduce transmission,” he said.
Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, head of the WHO vaccine group that made the recommendation, said designing a shot against malaria was particularly difficult because it is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes.
“We’re confronted with extraordinarily complex organisms,” he said. “We are not yet in reach of a highly efficacious vaccine, but what we have now is a vaccine that can be deployed and that is safe.”
WHO said side effects were rare, but sometimes included a fever that could result in temporary convulsions.
Also read: Covid-19 threatens global progress against malaria: WHO
Sian Clarke, co-director of the Malaria Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine would be a useful addition to other tools against the disease that might have exhausted their utility after decades of use, like bed nets and insecticides.
“In some countries where it gets really hot, children just sleep outside, so they can’t be protected by a bed net,” Clarke said. “So obviously if they’ve been vaccinated, they will still be protected.”
In recent years, little significant progress has been made against malaria, Clarke said.
“If we’re going to decrease the disease burden now, we need something else,” she explained.
Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said she and colleagues estimate that giving the malaria vaccine to children in Africa might result in a 30% reduction overall, with up to 8 million fewer cases and as many as 40,000 fewer deaths per year.
“For people not living in malaria countries, a 30% reduction might not sound like much. But for the people living in those areas, malaria is one of their top concerns,” Ghani said. “A 30% reduction will save a lot of lives and will save mothers (from) bringing in their children to health centers and swamping the health system.”
The WHO guidance would hopefully be a “first step” to making better malaria vaccines, she said. Efforts to produce a second-generation malaria vaccine might be given a boost by the messenger RNA technology used to make two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines, those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, she added.
“We’ve seen much higher antibody levels from the mRNA vaccines, and they can also be adapted very quickly,” Ghani said, noting that BioNTech recently said it would begin researching a possible malaria shot. “It’s impossible to say how that may affect a malaria vaccine, but we definitely need new options to fight it.”
Health Ministry officials to attend WHO meeting in Geneva
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque will attend a World Health Organization (WHO) bureau meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
He will leave Dhaka in the early hours of Tuesday from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on an Emirates flight.
Additional Secretary of the Health Services Department Kazi Jebunnesa Begum, Private Secretary to the Minister of Health Kamrul Hasan, Deputy Secretary Md. Sadequl Islam and Health and Family Planning Officer of Tejgaon Health Complex in Dhaka Dr. Md. Mofizul Islam Bulbul will accompany the Minister.
READ: Covid testing at Dhaka airport to begin on Saturday, says health minister
After the WHO bureau meeting, the Minister will hold separate meetings with WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and member of the Global Fund Management Team and Coordinator of Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) Ms. Gerda Verburg on issues related to coronavirus treatment, medicines, population and nutrition.
READ: Vaccination of students aged 12-17 to begin within 20 days: Health Minister
India vaccinations cross 750 million
India on Monday delivered 6.7 million more doses of coronavirus vaccines till 6pm, administering more than 750 million doses in all, reports Hindustan Times.
At least 570 million people have received at least one dose, which means 60% of the eligible adult population has now received a shot.
“WHO (World Health Organization) congratulates India for scaling up Covid-19 vaccination at an unprecedented pace. While it took 85 days to administer the first 100 million doses, India reached 750 million doses from 650 million in just 13 days,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO South-East Asia region.
Read: India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpasses 73.82 Cr
The UN health body responded after Union minister for health and family welfare Mansukh Mandaviya announced the milestone achievement through a tweet, saying that the country’s vaccination drive continued was making new gains under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘Congratulations India! In the 75th year of independence, the country has crossed the figure of 75 crore vaccinations,” the health minister tweeted with hashtags #SabkoVaccineMuftVaccine and #AazadiKaAmritMahotsav.
So far, all eligible beneficiaries in six states and Union Territories -- Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Ladakh and Lakshadweep -- have received at least one dose.
In all, 180 million people have been fully vaccinated, according to the government’s Co-WIN dashboard.
Read: India to provide vaccines to Bangladesh if production goes up: Dr Hasan Mahmud
“The Union government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of Covid-19 vaccination throughout the country. The country has also become home to more than 99% health care workers and frontline workers vaccinated with one shot of Covid vaccine,” said the health ministry in a statement.
On Monday, the member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region also resolved to work towards making ‘every school a health promoting school’, while also committing to safe school operations during the pandemic.
“Schools have an important role in promoting healthy lifestyles, life-long healthy behaviors and to nurture human capital for sustainable development of any society. We need a whole-of-government approach to ensure children from all socio-economic background, including those with special needs, benefit from healthy schools,” said Singh.
Air pollution cuts Dhaka dwellers’ life expectancy by 7.7 years: Study
Air pollution is reducing the life expectancy of the residents of Dhaka, one the most polluted cities in the world, by 7.7 years, says a new study.
The residents of Dhaka could live 7.7 years longer while the average life expectancy in Bangladesh would have been 5.6 years higher if pollution concentrations could have been complied with the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline, said an analysis of data from the Air Quality Life Index, conducted by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).
The study finds that particulate pollution cuts global life expectancy by nearly 2.2 years.
Bangladesh, known as one of the most densely-populated countries in the world, has been struggling with air pollution for a long time.
In many cases, Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is often found to be the most polluted city in the world in global indices.
Particulate matter pollution continues to rise in Bangladesh. Since 1998, the average annual particulate pollution has increased by 15.3 percent, cutting 0.9 years off the lives of the average Bangladesh residents over the years, it said.
In each of the 64 districts, the levels of particulate matter were found to be at least three times higher than the WHO guidelines.
The most polluted areas of the country are Rajshahi and Khulna divisions as the average residents are exposed to pollution that is more than seven times of the WHO guidelines, reducing life expectancy by more than six years, it added.
Covid cases, fatalities continue to fall in Bangladesh
The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 and dying from the virus has continued to fall in Bangladesh, the latest daily figures show.
Bangladesh added 117 new fatalities to its national tally Friday – down from 145 logged a week earlier on August 20.
The average number of Covid-related fatalities confirmed each day has dropped by more than 110 over the last three weeks, 46% of the previous peak.
The country reported below 100, 77 fatalities, on June 26, the highest fatality number – 264 – on August 5 and 10, and 16,230 infections on July 28.
Bangladesh is now seeing a sustained drop in the daily case numbers, reporting 5,059 new cases on average each day – 35% of the peak. The highest daily average was reported on August 3.
Read: Bangladesh to receive 60 lakh more Pfizer vaccine doses in Aug: Minister
Global Covid cases top 195 million
The global Covid-19 caseload has now surpassed 195 million as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to devastate several countries even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities stand at 195,265,112 and 4,176,605 respectively, as of Wednesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 3,917,974,546 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe.
The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 34,603,658 cases. Besides, 611,409 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data.
Read: Myanmar: Expert calls for “COVID ceasefire”; urges new UN resolution
Brazil registered 578 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 550,502, the health ministry said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the total caseload rose to 19,707,662 after 18,999 new cases were detected during the period.
Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India.
The third worst-hit country, India's Covid-19 tally rose to 31,440,951 on Tuesday morning as 29,689 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, as per the federal health ministry's latest data.
"India reports less than 30,000 daily cases after 132 days," said a statement issued by the ministry.
Besides, as many as 415 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 421,382.
Situation in Bangladesh
As the country battles a brutal wave of the pandemic, Bangladesh logged a record-high 258 coronavirus-related deaths in 24 hours till Tuesday morning, shattering the previous day's record of 247.
The country has been seeing nearly 200 deaths every day for the past two weeks and breaking records of daily cases and deaths almost every other day.
Besides, 14,925 more people came out Covid positive after the test of 52,478 samples, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read:DGHS closes 11 private Covid testing booths in Rooppur due to irregularities
The country saw the highest-ever 15,192 Covid cases on Monday.
With the new numbers, the death tally from Covid-19 reached 19,779 on Tuesday, while the caseload mounted to 1,194,752.
Meanwhile, the daily test-positivity rate declined to 28.44% from Monday's 29.82% while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.
Besides, the case fatality rate rose to 1.66% during the period after remaining unchanged at 1.65% for a few days, said the DGHS.
Vaccination campaign to gain momentum
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday reaffirmed her government's commitment to ensure Covid-19 vaccine doses for all in any case.
The prime minister said she has already given directives to vaccinate the helping hands of a family, including domestic helps and drivers, so that all of a family can remain protected.
The prime minister said 1.87 crore people have so far been vaccinated and all will be brought under the vaccination programme.
The Covid-19 vaccination programme at union level will start across the country on August 7, said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Tuesday.
“The prime minister has ordered speeding up the vaccination drive. One can get vaccinated at the union level showing one's NID card. Vaccination centres will be set up in unions across the country before August 7,” he said.
Read:Govt to vaccinate Rohingyas gradually starting with above-55s: Foreign Secretary
Those who do not have any NID will be vaccinated under a special arrangement, he added.
Meanwhile, the government decided to vaccinate the Rohingya refugees as part of an inclusive vaccination programme.
Although no start date was offered, those who are above 55 years will be considered in the first phase as per a preliminary decision.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, while talking to reporters on Tuesday, said the host communities around the Rohingya camps have frequent communication with the refugees and the government wants to keep both protected as well.
China rebuffs WHO’s terms for further COVID-19 origins study
China cannot accept the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a study into the origins of COVID-19, a senior Chinese health official said Thursday.
Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission, said he was “rather taken aback” that the plan includes further investigation of the theory that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab.
He dismissed the lab leak idea as a rumor that runs counter to common sense and science.
Read:China blasts dam to divert floods that killed at least 25
“It is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan,” he said at a news conference called to address the COVID-19 origins issue.
The search for where the virus came from has become a diplomatic issue that has fueled China’s deteriorating relations with the U.S. and many American allies. The U.S. and others say that China has not been transparent about what happened in the early days of the pandemic. China accuses critics of seeking to blame it for the pandemic and politicizing an issue that should be left to scientists.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of WHO, acknowledged last week that there had been a “premature push” after the first phase of the study to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, the city where the disease was first detected in late 2019.
Most experts don’t think a lab leak is the likely cause. The question is whether the possibility is so remote that it should be dropped, or whether it merits further study.
The first phase was conducted earlier this year by an international team of scientists who came to Wuhan to work with their Chinese counterparts. The team was accused of bowing to demands from the Chinese side after it initially indicated that further study wasn’t necessary.
Zeng said the Wuhan lab has no virus that can directly infect humans and noted that the WHO team concluded that a lab leak was highly unlikely. He added that speculation that staff and graduate students at the lab had been infected and might have started the spread of the virus in the city was untrue.
Read:China rejects hacking charges, accuses US of cyberspying
Yuan Zhiming, the director of the biosafety lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said they had not stored or studied the new coronavirus before the outbreak. “I want to emphasize that .... the Wuhan Institute of Virology has never designed, made or leaked the novel coronavirus,” he said.
The WHO team concluded that the virus most likely jumped from animals to humans, probably from bats to an intermediate animal. The experts visited markets in Wuhan that had sold live animals, and recommended further study of the farms that supplied the market.
“In the next step, I think animal tracing should still be the priority direction. It is the most valuable field for our efforts,” Liang Wannian, who headed the Chinese side, said at Thursday’s news conference.
Tedros said last week that he hoped for better cooperation and access to data from China. “We are asking China to be transparent, open and cooperate, especially on the information, raw data that we asked for in the early days of the pandemic,” he said.
His words were echoed at the same virtual news conference by Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, who called on China to intensify cooperation in the search for the origin of the virus.
Zeng said China has always supported “scientific virus tracing” and wants to see the study extended to other countries and regions. “However, we are opposed to politicizing the tracing work,” he said.
Read:It was premature to rule out Covid lab leak: WHO
China has frequently sought to deflect accusations that the pandemic originated in Wuhan and was allowed to spread by early bureaucratic missteps and an attempted coverup.
Government spokespersons have called for an investigation into whether the virus might have been produced in a U.S. military laboratory, a theory not widely shared in the scientific community.
China has largely ended local transmission of COVID through lockdowns and mask-wearing requirements, and has now administered more than 1.4 billion doses of Chinese vaccines. Just 12 new domestically spread cases were reported Thursday and China’s death toll from the virus has remained unchanged for months at 4,636.
Americas account for 40% global Covid deaths, 25% cases: WHO
North, Central and South Americas still bear the global burden of 40% of Covid-19 fatalities and more than 25% of cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Almost 1 million cases were reported in the Americas last week, said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on Covid-19 for the WHO, Monday.
Read:US tops 30 million confirmed cases of COVID-19
In Brazil, around 300,000 cases were recorded last week; in the US, more than 200,000 cases were reported, Maria added.
She warned of a peak in the transmission level that has been observed in the region, saying that "they are stuck at a high level of intensity, and cannot quite bring that transmission down."
An 11.5% rise in global cases were seen last week, with Europe and the Western Pacific being hit the hardest, Maria said. "The Americas saw a moderate increase of 0.5%, but some countries were plagued by really sharp spikes in transmission possibly due to new variants."
Meanwhile, US life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read: Global Covid cases near 190 million
The covid-19 pandemic is responsible for around 74% of the overall life expectancy decline. More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, far more than any other year in US history, with Covid-19 accounting for about 11% of those deaths, the health officials said.
However, the virus' role varied by race and ethnicity. It was responsible for 90% of the decline in life expectancy among Hispanics, 68% among white people and 59% among Black Americans.
For decades, US life expectancy was on the upswing. But that trend stalled in 2015, for several years, before hitting 78 years, 10 months in 2019. Last year, it fell to about 77 years, four months, the CDC said.
"South America, Central America and other places around the world need more vaccines if they are going to break this deadly cycle of cases," said Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program.
WHO head says Olympics virus risk inevitable
The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
The head of the World Health Organization says the Tokyo Olympics should not be judged by how many COVID-19 cases arise because eliminating risk is impossible.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an International Olympic Committee meeting that how infections are handled is what matters most.
Also read: Japan girds for a surreal Olympics, and questions are plenty
“The mark of success is making sure that any cases are identified, isolated, traced and cared for as quickly as possible and onward transmission is interrupted,” he said.
The number of Games-linked COVID-19 cases in Japan this month was 79 on Wednesday, with more international athletes testing positive at home and unable to travel.
Teammates classed as close contacts of infected athletes can continue training and preparing for events under a regime of isolation and extra monitoring.
Host Japan is off to a winning start as the Tokyo Olympics get underway, beating Australia 8-1 Wednesday in softball behind 39-year-old pitcher Yukiko Ueno, who won the 2008 gold medal game against the United States.
Also read: Tokyo's daily COVID-19 cases top 1,000 for 3rd straight day, just a week before Olympics
The game was played in a nearly empty stadium. Fans were barred because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many in Japan have questioned whether the Olympics should take place at all with low levels of vaccination in the nation.
Ueno allowed two hits over 4 1/3 innings and struck out seven, throwing 85 pitches for the win.
Minori Naito and Saki Yamazaki hit two-run homers off loser Kaia Parnaby. Yu Yamamoto, who had three RBIs, added a two-run drive against Tarni Stepto in the fifth that ended the game under a rout rule.
Japan is defending softball gold medalist after upsetting the U.S. in the 2008 final. Softball and baseball were dropped for 2012 and 2016 and restored for these Olympics. They already have been dropped for the 2024 Paris Games but are likely to be restored for 2028 in Los Angeles.
'Dangerous period' with delta variant: WHO
The head of the World Health Organization says the world is in “a very dangerous period” of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting the more contagious delta variant is identified in nearly 100 countries.
At a press briefing on Friday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the delta variant, first found in India, is continuing to evolve and mutate, and it is becoming the predominant COVID-19 virus in many countries.
Also read: Delta variant exploits low vaccine rates, easing of rules
“I have already urged leaders across the world to ensure that by this time next year, 70% of all people in every country are vaccinated,” he said, adding that would effectively end the acute phase of the pandemic.
He noted 3 billion doses of vaccine have already been distributed and, “it’s within the collective power of a few countries to step up and ensure that vaccines are shared.”
Also read: What should I know about the delta variant?
Of the vaccine doses given globally, fewer than 2% have been in poorer countries. Although rich countries including Britain, the U.S., France and Canada have pledged to donate 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines, WHO estimates 11 billion doses are needed to immunize the world.