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AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time.
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"Africa is facing delays in accessing life-saving vaccines for COVID-19. The continent may experience similar delays in the future. The continent faces significant and enduring public health threats, including measles, rotavirus, yellow fever and Ebola. To manage these public health threats, Africa needs its own capacity for vaccine development and production so that it can immunise for childhood diseases and help control outbreaks of highly infectious diseases—including COVID-19.”
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Latest Global Stats
July 9, 2021
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Global Documented Case
185,685,438
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Global Reported Deaths
4,012,856
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People Fully Vaccinated
912,188,437
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The world reached a grim milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic, crossing 4 million known deaths this week. The real toll from the virus is likely much higher and will never be fully known.
Al Jazeera (Qatar) reports that “the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious Delta variant. The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is equivalent to more than half of Hong Kong or close to 50 percent of New York City.”
Cases and deaths continue to rise in many communities and nations across the globe. The New York Times (US) quotes WHO’s Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove as saying, “more than two dozen countries…have epidemic curves that are almost vertical.”
Meanwhile, global vaccine efforts continue to be woefully slow, with just over 1 in 10 people around the world fully vaccinated. Nature (UK) reports, “…so far, more than 80 percent of the doses have gone to people in high-income and upper-middle-income countries. Only 1 percent of people in low-income countries have been given at least one dose, according to the website Our World in Data.” Nature reports experts say most people in the world won’t be vaccinated until 2023.
If You Are in a Hurry
- Listen to Nature’s Coronapod podcast to learn more about how corelates of protection could help with vaccine research.
- Read CNN on Pfizer’s announcement about booster shots and then see what the US FDA and CDC say about boosters on Axios.
- See what Vox says is the song of the Northern hemisphere summer and watch the video here.
- Read Nature’s update on Sputnik’s safety and efficacy from real world data.
- Read the New York Times on vaccines and people who are immunocompromised.
- Read Helen Branswell in STAT about the possibility of stretching vaccine doses to reach more people.
The Delta Variant
As the Delta variant races around the world and spikes infection rates among people who have not been vaccinated, there is growing concern that even vaccinated people could be more susceptible to this variant and researchers are trying to determine if that is the case. STAT (US) reports on a study from France “analyzing how well Delta, in a lab dish, was able to evade monoclonal antibody drugs such as bamlamivimab and natural antibodies made in our bodies after infection or vaccination. Looking at both kinds of antibodies in blood drawn from 162 patients and how they reacted to Delta, researchers from the Institut Pasteur in France found lower protection against the variant than against three other variants also notable for how easily they spread from person to person…. The findings underscore the effectiveness of vaccines against the Delta variant if people get the recommended two doses. They also highlight the added immunity a single dose of vaccine provides people previously infected with another COVID variant.”
Mail & Guardian reports, “Fifteen African countries have now reported the prevalence of the Delta variant of COVID-19, with overall infections on the continent rising to nearly six-million people, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) Dr. John Nkengasong said on Thursday 8 July…. Of the 23 countries in Africa reporting a third wave of infections, 13 are in the throes of a severe third wave. Nkengasong confirmed that the new Delta variant was largely contributing to the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa, but stressed that the current recommended safety measures of washing hands, wearing masks and social distancing were effective measures against this and all other strains.”
The Atlanta Voice (US) reports, “After months of progress in the fight against COVID-19, cases are rising again as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the US. States with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new COVID-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University. As of Sunday, states with lower rates of vaccination reported an average of 6 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. States with higher vaccination rates reported an average of 2.2 new cases per 100,000 residents each day over the past week.”
Reuters (UK) reports, “The highly contagious Delta variant now represents around 40 percent of new COVID-19 infections in France and could ruin the summer if a fourth wave of infections is allowed to build, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday. Attal said forging ahead with vaccinations was the best way to avoid a return to tough curbs on movement and socialising. He urged any hesitant citizens to get the shot.”
Pfizer Booster Shots?
CNN (US) reports “Drugmaker Pfizer said Thursday it is seeing waning immunity from its coronavirus vaccine and says it is picking up its efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people from variants. It said it would seek emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for a booster dose in August after releasing more data about how well a third dose of vaccine works.” Shortly after the announcement Axios (US) reported, “People who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need a booster shot at this time, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a joint statement released Thursday evening. ‘People who are fully vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as Delta,’ the FDA and CDC said. ‘Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time. FDA, CDC, and [the National Institutes of Health] are engaged in a science-based, rigorous process to consider whether or when a booster might be necessary,’ they added.”
Russian Vaccine Appears Safe and Effective
Nature (UK) reports, “Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik, has been the subject of fascination and controversy since the Russian government authorized its use last year, before early-stage trial results were even published. Evidence from Russia and many other countries now suggests it is safe and effective—but questions remain about the quality of surveillance for possible rare side effects.”
Vaccine Efficacy Among People Who Are Immunocompromised
One vital largely unanswered question for many people is the degree of protection from vaccines for people who are immunocompromised. The New York Times (US) reports there are some studies beginning to look at whether a third shot might help boost immunity for some people. “Since April, health care providers in France have routinely given a third dose of a two-dose vaccine to people with certain immune conditions. The number of organ transplant recipients who had antibodies increased to 68 percent four weeks after the third dose from 40 percent after the second dose, one team of French researchers recently reported…. In the United States, there is no concerted effort by federal agencies or vaccine manufacturers to test this approach, leaving people with low immunity with more questions than answers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health in fact recommend even against testing to find out who is protected. And academic scientists are stymied by the rules that limit access to the vaccines.”
CEPI says in a statement “that it will co-fund a study to assess the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination in patients aged 18 years or older who are immunosuppressed or who have received an organ transplant and are receiving immunosuppressive medication…. The primary aim of this study is to establish the level of adaptive immune responses to the COVID-19 vaccines in these populations, including B-cell and T-cell responses. An additional booster dose will be offered to participants in the intervention arm of the study who have low or no immune response to vaccination and will be monitored.”
COVID and Young People
Nature (UK) looks at how COVID is impacting young people in countries with high vaccination rates among adults. “This shift is occurring in many countries that vaccinated older people first, and are now reaching high levels of vaccination in the adult population. It follows an earlier drop in age resulting from public-health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among older people who are most at risk of severe disease, such as those in nursing homes, say researchers. And the shift has brought fresh impetus to studies of transmission and disease in younger age groups. To make better policy decisions, ‘it’s becoming more and more important to understand the burden of disease among children and adolescents’, says Karin Magnusson, an epidemiologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo.”
BBC (UK) reports that in a UK study, “The overall risk of children becoming severely ill or dying from COVID is extremely low, a new analysis of COVID infection data confirms. Data from the first 12 months of the pandemic in England shows 25 under-18s died from COVID, putting the overall risk of death at around two in a million children, scientists estimate. Those living with chronic illnesses and neuro-disabilities were most at risk.”
Stretching Vaccine Doses?
Helen Branswell in STAT (US) asks, “What if current supplies could be stretched, to vaccinate more people more quickly? What if the world is using more vaccine than it needs to on each person immunized, depriving people in the queue of a chance to be protected? Reducing the size of a vaccine dose is an approach that has been used successfully before and ought to be explored, some scientists argue…. The idea of splitting doses of COVID vaccines is not universally supported, however; a number of experts contend that the vaccines should be used in the dose size tested during clinical trials and cleared for use by regulatory agencies. That route offers the best protection for individuals who are vaccinated, they insist. 'The problem where I’m coming from is you have to prove fractional dosing works,' said Larry Corey, who co-led design of the trials of the COVID vaccines supported by the US government. That hasn’t happened yet.”
Disaggregate Your Data
Science (US) reports COVID-19 doesn’t strike the sexes equally…. But out of 45 COVID-19 randomized controlled trials whose results were published by December 2020, only eight reported the impact of sex or gender, according to a paper published today in Nature Communications. Other recent data show even simple counts of cases and vaccinations are not broken down by sex and gender…. The COVID-19 pandemic has ‘shone a light on the importance of sex and gender in a way that very few other conditions have managed to do,’ says Sarah Hawkes, co-director of Global Health 50/50. She and others say it’s time researchers shed their own light on those differences.
COVID and the Brain
Nature (UK) reports New evidence suggests that the coronavirus’s assault on the brain could be multipronged: it might attack certain brain cells directly, reduce blood flow to brain tissue or trigger production of immune molecules that can harm brain cells. Infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can cause memory loss, strokes and other effects on the brain. The question, says Serena Spudich, a neurologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, is: ‘Can we intervene early to address these abnormalities so that people don’t have long-term problems?’”
Correlates of Protection Discussed
Nature’s Coronapod podcast looks at what correlates of protection could mean for developing new vaccines or tweaking exising ones to work better against variants.
Africa Should Look Beyond COVID Vaccine Manufacturing
In a commentary in The Conversation, Bartholomew Dicky Akanmori argues, “COVID-19 has shown that regions and countries take care of their own people first when crises hit. Africa wants to be able to do the same. To do so, the continent must seize new opportunities to fast-track the development of vaccine manufacturing capacity and to boost regulatory processes…. Africa is facing delays in accessing life-saving vaccines for COVID-19. The continent may experience similar delays in the future. The continent faces significant and enduring public health threats, including measles, rotavirus, yellow fever and Ebola. To manage these public health threats, Africa needs its own capacity for vaccine development and production so that it can immunise for childhood diseases and help control outbreaks of highly infectious diseases—including COVID-19.”
The Star (Kenya) reports, “Kenya's dependency on foreign vaccine manufacturers could soon end. This is after top scientists launched the Sisulu Foundation for African and Pandemic Disease Response. The Sisulu Foundation launched on Thursday brings together top researchers and research institutes in vaccines and virology from the continent…. The aim is to accelerate responses from within African research community with regards to diseases and pandemics. Top on the agenda is coming up with a COVID-19 vaccine to help mitigate the already existing shortage due to global supply challenges.”
Measles Outbreaks Exacerbated by COVID Pandemic
The Nation (Kenya) reports, “As Kenya was coming to terms with COVID-19 last year, a ‘worrisome’ measles outbreak was happening. ‘Immunisation coverage dropped due to COVID-19. If nothing is done now we will have an outbreak like in the DRC,’ Dr Collins Tabu, the head of Kenya’s National Vaccines and Immunization Program told HealthyNation. In the last one-and-a-half years, the cases of measles, the world’s fastest spreading virus, has increased by more than 700 per cent in the country, said the Health ministry.”
National Geographic (US) reports that in Brazil an “increasing number have decided that both they and their children can hold off on getting routine vaccines that keep diseases like polio, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, and flu at bay. That's in line with the World Health Organization and UNICEF's concerns that the pandemic could endanger gains made against a slew of childhood diseases.”
WHO Advises New Treatments for Severe COVID
CIDRP (US) reports, “The World Health Organization (WHO) today recommended the use of anti-inflammatory monoclonal antibodies—tocilizumab and sarilumab—alongside corticosteroids for treating patients who have severe or critical COVID-19 infections.”
Vaccines for Pregnant Women
The Herald (Zimbabwe) reports, “COVID-19 vaccines being administered in Zimbabwe are now known to be safe for everyone above the age of 17, including pregnant and breastfeeding women following the latest World Health Organisation guidelines. Although demand for the vaccines has been increasing, very few pregnant and breastfeeding women have been taking the jabs, fearing the drug could have adverse effects on their children. But national chief coordinator of the COVID-19 response team Dr. Agnes Mahomva said the World Health Organisation recently released guidelines certifying the vaccines safe for use.”
The Limits of a Meta-Analysis
A perspective in Medscape (US) argues, “The meta-analysis rose through the ranks of the medical evidence pyramid during the COVID-19 pandemic. As doctors urgently searched for answers to pressing questions, they leaned harder than ever on preliminary science to help guide patient care. They felt like they couldn't afford to wait for high-caliber clinical trial data in the crisis, so they turned to alternatives…. The meta-analysis has been broadly applied during the pandemic to encourage the use of unproven drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. However, taking a closer look at these meta-analyses shows that there is more lead than gold within. Some studies included preprints together with peer-reviewed articles, while others included a small number of articles and added low-quality observational data or deeply flawed clinical trials. And almost all of the meta-analyses excluded well-designed, randomized clinical trials.”
“Vax That Thang Up”
Vox (US) asks, “how is anything going to compete for song of the summer now Juvenile has resurrected his 22-year-old smash “Back That Thang Up” as a catchy and timely vaccine anthem?” The Guardian (UK) reports, “The New Orleans rapper Juvenile’s biggest hit record, Back That Thang Up, might have been released 21 years ago, but the classic song is now enjoying a new life as a reworked, pro-vaccine paean that could prove to be a stroke of genius in the battle against COVID-19 in the Black community.” Watch the video here.
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