Two billion COVID shots have been administered in the past few months—a monumental achievement to be sure, but far short of what is needed to turn the tide on the COVID pandemic. Less than six percent of the global population has been fully vaccinated. This week there were more efforts to expand vaccine access to some countries, but the vast inequity in vaccine distribution remains.
 
The O'Neill Institute’s Lawrence Gostin writes in The Daily Beast (US) of the 2 billion shot threshold: “I’ve been in public health for 30 years and have never seen anything quite like it—not even the widely successful smallpox or polio vaccination campaigns…. Of the two billion doses, 75 percent have been administered in 10 countries, with China, the US, and India taking the lion’s share. According to AFP, the world’s poorest countries have administered only 0.3 percent of doses; 6 poor countries haven’t given a single shot. Overall, Africa has given only 2.5 doses per 100 people, against 87 in the US and 47 in Europe.”
 
Bloomberg (US) reports, “COVAX is struggling to get hold of vaccines, which means the world won’t return to normal anytime soon. So far, it’s been able to deliver about 78 million shots, or 4 percent of the 1.95 billion doses administered globally. At every turn, it’s been stymied by pharmaceutical companies drawing out negotiations and countries hoarding doses and raw materials. Most recently, COVAX has been buffeted by an export ban imposed by the world’s biggest vaccine producer, India, which is experiencing a devastating second wave of COVID. As a result, it will reach the midpoint of the year about 190 million doses short of where it expected to be.”
 

If You Are in a Hurry

• Read The Citizen on fears of a coming third wave in Africa.
• Read the Washington Post on US plans to share a small number of vaccine doses with other countries this month.
• Read Pharmalot on a plea to rich countries to fund plans to increase access to vaccines.
• Read Emily Bass and Ethan Guillén in Foreign Policy on what the new Prevention and Public Health Fund can learn from the HIV response.
• Read AP on why a WHO official says vaccinating children shouldn’t be a priority.
• Check out an NPR story on WHO’s new names for variants.
• Follow the search for a cure on PBS Newshour.

 

Third Wave in Africa as Vaccines Delayed

 
New Telegraph (Nigeria) reports “Some African nations, including Nigeria are said to be facing the risk of a surge in COVID-19 cases due to deteriorating health facilities, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. The implication of this, New Telegraph learnt, is for African countries to urgently boost critical care capacity to prevent health facilities from being overwhelmed. This comes as vaccine shipments to the continent grind to a near halt…. As the continent struggles with vaccine shortages, the care of critically ill COVID-19 patients is also lagging behind other parts of the world. While Africa has 2.9 percent of cases globally, it accounts for 3.7 percent of deaths. A critical check revealed that some of the factors likely to cause this include weak observance of preventive measures, increased population movement and interaction as well as the arrival of winter in southern Africa, which have heightened the risk of COVID-19 resurgence in many countries.”
 
The Citizen (South Africa) quotes WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti saying, “Many African hospitals and clinics are still far from ready to cope with a huge rise in critically ill patients. The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising.” … In recent weeks, the continent has seen a rise in infections. The WHO warned in a statement that the pandemic is trending upwards in 14 countries. ‘In the past week alone, eight countries witnessed an abrupt rise of over 30 percent in cases,’ it said.”
 
Times Live (South Africa) reports, “The delay in authorising Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines for release after problems at a US company making the components could impact the whole continent and not only SA’s vaccine rollout, said Dr John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, at his weekly COVID-19 update on Thursday. ‘SA is not the only country affected. We are looking forward to using a lot of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Our entire AVATT (African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team) strategy is underpinned by the need to have 270 million doses from J&J, with the option of taking up another 400 million,’ he said…. Vaccinations have barely increased in the past week, rising by only 0.8 percent, bringing to 0.54 percent the continent’s population who are fully vaccinated. To date, 31 million doses have been given, using up 60 percent of available supply.”
 

US Plan to Share Some Vaccine Doses

 
The Washington Post (US) reports, “Responding to criticism that the United States has hoarded lifesaving coronavirus vaccines, the Biden administration on Thursday announced a plan to share 25 million doses globally in what officials described as a down payment on tens of millions more doses to come. Officials said they would share at least 80 million doses globally by month’s end—sending about three-quarters of the total through international public health organizations, while reserving the remaining quarter for direct donations to handpicked nations.
 
Africa Times reports, “African nations can expect 5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the United States, according to US President Joe Biden. The commitment was announced Thursday as part of a US plan to send vaccines to low-income nations still waiting for the lifesaving medicine…. Doses destined for Africa from the US will be coordinated through the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Six million doses are headed for Latin America and the Caribbean, and seven million will go to southern Asian nations. The rest will go to specific countries experiencing surges in their COVID cases. That’s true in many African nations trying to manage the crisis without adequate vaccine access, which has sparked criticism of the US for its failure to share either the treatment or the technology.”
 
Pharmalot (US) reports, “In a plea to halt the COVID-19 pandemic, [WHO, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund] are calling for investments of up to $50 billion—mostly from wealthy nations—to boost manufacturing capacity and supplies and ease trade rules to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines and other medical products….With additional funding to COVAX, a WHO vaccine distribution program, the global agencies maintained that the current goal of vaccinating roughly 30 percent of the populations in low and middle-income countries could be widened to 40 percent and, possibly 60 percent by the first half of 2022…. ‘Increasingly, a two-track pandemic is developing, with richer countries having access and poorer ones being left behind,’ the agencies said in their statement. ‘Inequitable vaccine distribution is not only leaving untold millions of people vulnerable to the virus. It is also allowing deadly variants to emerge and ricochet back across the world.’”
 
AP (US) reports WHO’s Dr. Kate O’Brien said, “that immunizing children against COVID-19 is not a high priority from a WHO perspective, given the extremely limited global supply of doses…. ‘When we’re in this really difficult place, as we are right now, where the supply of vaccine is insufficient for everybody around the world, immunizing kids is not a high priority right now.’ O'Brien said it was critical to ensure health workers and the elderly, or those with underlying conditions, were inoculated ahead of teenagers and children.”
 
MorningStar (UK) reports, “Global COVID-19 vaccine inequality is “a stain on our collective humanity,” campaigners charged yesterday as they urged G7 leaders to act ahead of a major summit. The People’s Vaccine Alliance pointed out that more than a million people have died with the virus since the leaders last met and made pledges to increase global supplies in February [and] calculated that people living in G7 countries—Britain, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan—were 77 times more likely to have access to a jab than those living in the world’s poorest countries.”
 
Mmegi (Botswana) reports, “US vaccine producer, Moderna, has confirmed a bilateral deal to supply Botswana with COVID-19 vaccines… The supply deal is believed to be one of the first Moderna has clinched with an African country as most of its distribution has been for the US market…. Local Presidential Task Team officially previously said the supply would be enough to cover 250,000 people.”
 

Renaming Variants

 
NPR (US) reports the WHO introduced a new naming system for variants. “The new system takes the names of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and moves them away from what can be sometimes confusing scientific nomenclature, or shorthand that puts heavy emphasis on where the variants were first discovered. For example, under the new system, the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first identified in the UK, will be known as Alpha. The B.1.351 variant, first spotted in South Africa, will be called Beta, while the variant initially found in Brazil, known as P.1, will go by Gamma.” Several news outlets have already begun using this new nomenclature.
 

COVID and HIV

 
The Los Angeles Times (US) reports on data presented in a pre-print article about a single case in South Africa of a woman living with HIV that was not controlled and who had a COVID infection for more than 8 months that spawned several mutations. “The driving force behind the patient’s rapid accumulation of genetic changes is probably her impaired immune response due to her unsuccessfully treated HIV, the researchers said.” The woman, who had a very low CD4 count, continued to test positive for COVID for 216 days, during which time “the coronavirus that lingered in her body underwent 13 genetic changes related to its crucial spike protein, along with at least 19 other genetic shifts elsewhere that could change the behavior of the virus…. The new findings heighten the stakes for diagnosing and treating people everywhere with unrecognized or insufficiently treated HIV, said De Oliveira, the study leader. Expanding testing and treatment for those with undetected HIV ‘would reduce mortality from HIV, reduce transmission of HIV, and also reduce the chance of generating new COVID variants that could cause other waves of infections,’ he said.”
 

HIV’s Lessons for COVID

 
Emily Bass and Ethan Guillén write in Foreign Policy about plans to confront coming pandemics through a “health security financing mechanism.” They note, “Today, the world is struggling with the question of preventing the next pandemic—and each time the question is raised, we think of the Global Fund, but argue, “money alone won’t prevent or contain future pandemics. The structure, mandate, and home of the new fund are immensely important.” They conclude, “Such a fund is not impossible provided that a mobilized, enraged, and grieving civil society demands action. The new Prevention and Public Health Fund must be fully funded at the upper levels of estimated need. It must fund country compliance with IHRs and have a governance structure that reflects the expertise and priorities of the people most impacted by pandemics. And it must incorporate a comprehensive definition of pandemic prevention inclusive of ecological and health interventions into its mission and mandate. If these criteria are not met, then it is quite possible no amount of money will stave off the next global crisis. If they are, the goal of ensuring nothing like COVID-19 happens again could be within reach.”
 

The Crucial Role of Journalists

 
Ida Jooste writes in Daily Maverick (South Africa) about advice from Prof. Salim Abdool Karim to journalists “at the launch of “Let’s Talk Vaccines”, an e-learning course to guide quality vaccine journalism…. Karim voiced concern that vaccines could not be produced fast enough to meet global demand, which puts the global community on the back foot even as science is rapidly producing solutions.”
 

The World Needs More Nurses

 
The Guardian (UK) reports on a call at this week’s World Health Assembly to create 6 million more nursing jobs by 2030. “The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called on countries to invest in healthcare workers, nearly 50 percent of whom are nurses and midwives, saying the pandemic had reminded everyone ‘that these are incredible people doing incredible jobs under incredible circumstances. We owe them so much, and yet globally health and care workers often lack the protection, the equipment, the training, the decent pay, the safe working conditions and the respect they deserve…. If we have any hope of achieving a healthier, safer, fairer future, every member state must protect and invest in its health and care workforce as a matter of urgency.’”
 

“When It’s Risky”

 
Animated World News (US) reports on a South African animated short about staying safe in the pandemic. The 16-minute film stars the animator’s aunt “’The Sue’—to highlight how COVID-19 can affect high-risk individuals, like those with diabetes, and the daily precautions those individuals and their families should take. While the animation was supposed to be a story of victory, it ended up becoming a memorial…. ‘When we were making When It's Risky in June of 2020, [Sue] had gotten COVID symptoms and survived through it…. We were so excited and were going to turn the story around and show how she had survived it. But then, towards the beginning of 2021, that's when she lost her life because we had a second wave.’” Watch the film here.
 

Mass Vaccination in a Brazilian Town

 
Science (US) reports, “As part of an unusual experiment to track the real-world effectiveness of CoronaVac, a COVID-19 vaccine made by a Chinese company, almost all adult residents of Serrana, [a small town] in the state of São Paulo, received the required two shots between February and April, long before most would otherwise have become eligible for the vaccine. The results were dramatic. Symptomatic cases of COVID-19 have dropped by 80 percent since the start of mass vaccination, related hospitalizations fell 86 percent, and deaths plummeted 95 percent, the research team in charge of the experiment reported during a press conference.”
 

Counting the Lasting Health Burden of COVID

 
A Nature (UK) comment from two health economists argues, “Focusing only on cases and deaths hides the pandemic’s lasting health burden on people, societies and economies… As we count the devastating losses from COVID-19—of loved ones, jobs, communities, security—the lasting loss of health must also be tallied. Without the right metrics, we can see, understand and respond to only a fraction of the problem.”
 

Looking for a Cure

 
PBS Newshour (US) reports on efforts to find a COVID cure. “While most of the world’s attention is currently laser focused on getting vaccines to more people to stem the spread of the coronavirus, there’s also significant pressure on scientists to find a cure…. Scientists are hopeful that new drugs designed to stop the virus’ deadly reproduction could reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. The drugs offer hope and a contingency plan for unvaccinated individuals, particularly in low-income countries lagging far behind in the race to vaccinate.”
 

Good News and Bad News for Chinese Vaccines

 
Reuters (UK) reports WHO this week “has approved a COVID-19 vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech for emergency use listing, paving the way for a second Chinese shot to be used in poor countries…. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the move, calling the vaccine safe and effective and noting its easy storage requirements make it suitable for low-income countries.”
 
The Washington Post (US) reports that some countries are raising doubts about the Sinopharm vaccine, which WHO granted emergency use to last week. “Bahraini officials told news outlets this week that it would be offering Pfizer-BioNTech doses to certain high-risk individuals who have already received two Sinopharm jabs, suggesting they no longer saw two doses of the Sinopharm vaccine as enough, in the face of a new wave of coronavirus infections…. In Bahrain… a vaccination drive that relied heavily on Sinopharm has so far produced at best mixed results and failed to curb a rise in new cases.”