Denmark suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine on Thursday while the European Union (EU) prepares to approve Johnson & Johnson’s drug against the coronavirus, a year since WHO classified COVID-19 as a pandemic.
The suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine was decided “after the reports of serious cases of clot formation of blood in vaccinated people, “said the Danish National Health Agency, although it stressed that” it cannot be concluded at this time that there is a link between the vaccine and blood clots. “
The Anglo-Swedish vaccine is being closely monitored in response to several cases of people who died after receiving it, but no causal relationship has been established so far.
Austria announced on Monday that it had stopped administering a batch of laboratory vaccines following the death of a 49-year-old nurse who succumbed to “severe bleeding disorders” within days of receipt.
Four other European countries, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg immediately suspended vaccination with doses from this batch, which was supplied to 17 countries and included one million vaccines.
In a preliminary investigation, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said there was no link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and death in Austria.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also said this on Thursday this vaccine is “safe” and “effective”.
The EMA, which has already approved two other vaccines, those from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, is expected to approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Thursday, which requires only one injection, as opposed to the other, which requires two doses. .
In addition, this new vaccine can be stored in the refrigerator at the usual temperature for three months, which facilitates its distribution.
As for the Pfizer / BioNTech drug, a real-life study conducted in Israel and published Thursday claimed it is 97% effective against symptomatic cases and severe forms of the disease.
The deployment of vaccination is a major challenge against a virus that, according to an AFP count, has killed at least 2,621,295 people worldwide, with more than 117,982,000 cases of infection.
The United States, the country most affected with more than half a million deaths, it speeds up vaccination.
More than 93 million doses have been injected in the country, which has placed enough orders to receive the amount to vaccinate all American adults by the end of May.
“2021 will be very difficult” because of COVID-19
The situation is much less favorable in Brazil, which, on the contrary, appears to be sinking into a crisis. On Wednesday, the country recorded more than 2,000 deaths in 24 hours for the first time.
“We are at the worst moment of the pandemic in Brazil, the level of contamination with the variants makes the epidemic even more serious. The year 2021 will remain very difficult,” Margareth Dalholm, a pulmonologist and researcher at Fiocruz, told AFP. Reference Institute of Public Health.
“The situation in Brazil is very concerning. This reminds us that the areas already badly affected by the virus are still very vulnerable to new infections,” added Carissa Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) .
The vaccination started late in this immense country, which already accounted for 270,656 deaths. In addition, President Jair Bolsonaro is downplaying the pandemic and opposes store closures to preserve jobs, he says.
The opposition and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on the population to be vaccinated and not to follow “stupid decisions” by the president or the Ministry of Health.
In Europe, the WHO called for that “more is being done” in the face of “an alarming situation”. Several “hotspots” continue to cause concern to the European Commission, such as Tyrol in Austria, Nice and the Moselle in France, Bolzano in Italy and parts of Bavaria and Saxony in Germany.
German health authorities reported a surge in infections on Thursday, concerned about a “third wave” in the country fueled by the different variants.
France will evacuate the sick from some regions to relieve the hospitals that are not supplied, especially in the Paris region.
According to official statistics, life expectancy in Italy fell by almost a year to 82.3 years as a result of the pandemic.
Children “hungry, isolated, abused” during the COVID-19 pandemic
The pandemic will happen in a year’s time has “pushed back” almost all indicators that measure the development of children and young people in the world, UNICEF warns.
“The number of children who are hungry, isolated, abused, fearful, living in poverty and forced to marry has increased,” said director Henrietta Fore.
Six to seven million more children could be malnourished by 2020, a 14% increase that could translate into more than 10,000 additional deaths per month, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
In Asia, where Cambodia first announced its death from the coronavirus on Thursday, the COVID-19 threat didn’t stop hundreds of thousands of Indian pilgrims from bathing in the sacred Ganges River for a major Hindu festival.
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