CANCER : Can a vaccine against cancer be developed ?

As stunningly successful as the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been, researchers have long hoped to use mRNA vaccines for a very different purpose—to treat cancer. mRNA-based cancer treatment vaccines have been tested in small trials for nearly a decade, with some promising early results.

Read more at: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/mrna-vaccines-to-treat-cancer

Covid 19- Pfizer Covid vaccine may not protect against infection in kids - by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine offer almost no protection against coronavirus infection in kids ages 5 to 11, according to new data posted online — a finding that may have consequences for parents and their vaccinated children.

Researchers from the New York State Department of Health found that the vaccine’s effectiveness dropped to 12 percent from 68 percent in the age group in December and January, when the omicron variant of the coronavirus began circulating widely in the United States.

Read more at:Pfizer Covid vaccine may not protect against infection in kids

Life Expectancy: Can we live forever? New anti-ageing vaccine could bring immortality one step closer

What if you could live forever? It's a question long pondered by fictional supervillains and Silicon Valley billionaires alike.

Now researchers in Japan say they may have taken a step toward boosting human longevity with successful trials of a vaccine against the cells that contribute to the ageing process.

In laboratory trials, a drug targeting a protein contained in senescent cells - those which have naturally stopped reproducing themselves - slowed the progression of frailty in older mice, the researchers from Tokyo's Juntendo University said.

Read more at: Can we live forever? New anti-ageing vaccine could bring immortality one step closer | Euronews

Germany: Corona Vaccine: Booster Shot - Germany recommends booster shots for over 70s

Germany's vaccination authority, STIKO, recommended COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for people older than 70 on Thursday.

All residents of care homes, as well as workers who come into direct contact with them, should also be offered a third vaccine dose, the body said. The same was also recommended for medical workers in direct contact with patients.

Read more at: Germany recommends booster shots for over 70s | News | DW | 07.10.2021

USA: 45% of Republicans Support a Universal Vaccine Mandate: New Poll

45% of Republicans support a universal vaccine mandate, a new poll found. Comparatively, 84% of Democrats support a universal mandate A majority of Americans (64%) also supported such a mandate.

Read more at: 45% of Republicans Support a Universal Vaccine Mandate: New Poll

Japan -Pfizer Vaccines: Contaminated Pfizer Vaccines Reported In Several Japanese Cities

Several cities in Japan have reported ‘white-colored floating substances’ in Vials of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, according to Bloomberg.

The vials came from lot FF5357, where white contaminants were first reported by Kamakura City in Kanagawa prefecture. On Tuesday, two more cities – neighboring Sagamihara and Sakai City in Osaka prefecture reported contaminated vials, however there were no reports of adverse reactions. In Sagamihara, white substances were reported at three different vaccination sites on Sept. 11, 12 and 14.

Read more at: Contaminated Pfizer Vaccines Reported In Several Japanese Cities

COVID vaccine — the unfounded tale of infertility

Claims like "COVID vaccines make you infertile!" have been swirling around social media for months. At first, it was only women who had to worry about their fertility after a coronavirus vaccine. And the proponents of the claim say they can explain it biologically.

They say that vaccines produce antibodies that not only attack SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but also a protein that's needed for a placenta to grow in the womb.

But scientists say that is a myth.

Read more at: COVID vaccine — the unfounded tale of infertility | Science | In-depth reporting on science and technology | DW | 04.08.2021

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines may be 'new trigger' for heart inflammation, CDC group says, but benefit outweighs risks - by Lauren Pelley

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory group now says reports of heart inflammation in people given an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine are likely linked to the vaccine, but that the benefits of vaccination still outweigh any risks.

In a Wednesday presentation, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) noted that early data from its database shows a rate of 4.4 reported cases of heart inflammation per million first doses given of any mRNA vaccine in the 21 days following vaccination.

Read more at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-mrna-vaccines-may-be-new-trigger-for-heart-inflammation-cdc-group-says-but-benefit-outweighs-risk-1.6076870

G-7 nations expected to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world

The Group of Seven nations are set to commit to sharing at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with the world, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Thursday, with half coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K. as President Joe Biden urged allies to join in speeding the pandemic’s end and bolstering the strategic position of the world’s wealthiest democracies.

Johnson’s announcement on the eve of the G-7 leaders’ summit in England came hours after Biden committed to donating 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and previewed a coordinated effort by the advanced economies to make vaccination widely and speedily available everywhere.

Read more at: G-7 nations expected to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world

Coronavirus news: : Hungary to produce China′s Sinopharm jab

The Hungarian goverment on Monday announced plans to produce the Chinese-developed Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine locally.

Hungary is the only EU country to inoculate its citizens with the Chinese jab after domestic regulators approved its use.

Speaking in China, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said officials would open a planned €157 million ($193 million) vaccine plant in the eastern town of Debrecen.

Read more at Coronavirus digest: Hungary to produce China′s Sinopharm jab | News | DW | 31.05.2021

EU leaders confront US over vaccine patent waiver demands - by Sam Fleming, Jim Brunsden, Mehreen Khan and Michael Peel and Guy Chazan

EU leaders have confronted the Biden administration over its calls for Covid-19 vaccine patent waivers and urged the US to export jabs directly if it wants to help poor countries in need.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a two-day EU leaders’ summit in Porto, Portugal, that suspending intellectual property rights was no solution to supply shortages and called for a focus on ramping up production instead.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron and top EU officials echoed the German premier’s rhetoric as the union scrambled to respond to this week’s surprise US move. Both powers are attempting to fend off accusations they are hoarding vaccines as much of the world sees few or no shipments.

“I don’t think waiving patents is the solution to supply the vaccine to more people,” Merkel told reporters after the summit concluded on Saturday. “I think that we need the creativity and innovation of the companies — and for that we need patent protection.”

Read more at: EU leaders confront US over vaccine patent waiver demands | Financial Times

EU Coronavirus - Vaccine: EU puts faith in Pfizer jab with plan for 1.8 billion doses - "Too little, too late"??

The EU has announced plans to buy 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine through 2023. The bloc is also bringing forward shorter-term Pfizer deliveries after suspending orders for the Johnson & Johnson.

On Wednesday, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the EU planned to order 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine by 2023.

Von der Leyen said Brussels had full confidence in the technology behind the Pfizer vaccine. The manufacturing process used for the Pfizer product — dependent on mRNA — is different then the one behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, which uses a cold virus to transport a segment of the coronavirus to the recipients' cells.

Read more at: EU puts faith in Pfizer jab with plan for 1.8 billion doses | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 14.04.2021

EU vaccination chaos: How many vaccine doses have arrived in EU countries and how do they get there?

More than 85 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been distributed by vaccine manufacturers to EU and EEA countries and millions more are expected to arrive before the summer months.

Four vaccines are approved for use in the bloc - the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines, as well as the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine and the single dose jab from Johnson & Johnson.

But the EU has been heavily criticised for its slow vaccine rollout, with critics emphasising that they needed to incentivise companies better to scale up vaccine production before the vaccines were authorised.

Read more at:How many vaccine doses have arrived in EU countries and how do they get there? | Euronews

Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Fiasco’ Damages Europe’s Credibility - by Steven Erlanger

Alain Walravens, 63, is waiting to be invited for a first coronavirus vaccination. So are Marion Pochet, 71, a retired translator, and her husband, Jean-Marc. At least, Ms. Pochet said, they both have had Covid-19, “so we have some immunity, at least for the moment.”

All three are sharply critical of the European Union, which took control of vaccine procurement and distribution and is widely considered to have done worse than its main partners, the United States and Britain, let alone Israel, which have all gotten vaccines into a much larger percentage of their populations than Europe.

So far, only about 11 percent of the bloc’s population has received at least one vaccine shot, compared with 46 percent in Britain and 29 percent in the United States.

Read more at: Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Fiasco’ Damages Europe’s Credibility - The New York Times

European Union & Vaccine Rollout: Disaster Unfolding

For a long time now, the creation of the euro, a dangerous experiment that placed political fantasy over economic reality, has been the most damaging example of just how far, and just how incompetently, those running the EU would go in the name of “ever-closer union.” That dismal precedent may now have been eclipsed by Brussels’s involvement in securing supplies of the COVID-19 vaccine for those who live within the EU’s borders, a lethal experiment that placed political dogma over medical need.

Supported by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, the EU Commission (its administrative arm) took over the negotiations with vaccine manufacturers on behalf of all EU member-states last June. This was designed both as a declaration of EU “solidarity” and because of the belief that bargaining on behalf of the whole bloc could secure the vaccine at a cheaper price, a calculation that appeared to take little account of the economic costs of any delays, and delay was what — for a variety of reasons — Brussels delivered.

The U.K. came to its deal with AstraZeneca (the manufacturer of the Oxford vaccine) three months earlier than the EU, and its contract came with sharper teeth. The EU also took four months longer than the U.K. and U.S. to sign up with Pfizer.

Readmore at: European Union & Vaccine Rollout: Disaster Unfolding | National Review

France: ‘The end of naivety’: Macron backs EU vaccine export curbs

It’s the end of naivety,” Macron told reporters after a virtual EU summit.

“I support export control mechanisms put in place by the European Commission. I support the fact that we must block all exports for as long as some drug companies don’t respect their commitments with Europeans,” he added.

Macron said the EU had been late in ramping up vaccine production and inoculations, but was catching up and would become the world’s biggest producer of vaccines this summer.

Read more at: ‘The end of naivety’: Macron backs EU vaccine export curbs

Coronavirus Vaccine Passport: Vaccine passports for travelling: the road to freedom or an attack on freedom of movement?

Vaccine passports, which aren't really passports at all but rather a certificate of vaccination, could allow those who get the jab a taste of 'normality.' They could be used to gain entry to restaurants, bars, festivals, and aeroplanes. But many argue they have downsides.

The 'passports' could create two classes of citizens: the vaccinated and the non-vaccinated. This seems especially unfair in the many countries where it is still so difficult to access vaccines, with some developing countries predicted to not receive any doses until 2024.

Read more: Vaccine passports for travelling: the road to freedom or an attack on freedom of movement? | Euronews

Middle East: COVID-19 vaccines as ′biological warfare′ in Middle East?

Aid and human rights organizations say they fear that the COVID-19 vaccine could become a tool for governments, rebel groups and other fighters involved in conflicts in the Middle East to advance their own goals.

Using vaccines this way "is a form of indirect, passive biological warfare," Annie Sparrow, a public health expert at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, told DW.

It has happened before and it has been very deliberate, Sparrow said. Near the beginning of the Syrian civil war, in 2013, a disease the world had mostly eradicated broke out in Deir ez-Zour. The country officially eliminated polio in 1995. But medical researchers say that in 2012, Bashar al-Assad's government deliberately excluded the area, controlled by fighters who oppose it, from earlier routine vaccination drives. "This was a man-made outbreak," Sparrow wrote at the time.

Read More at: COVID-19 vaccines as ′biological warfare′ in Middle East? | Middle East| News and analysis of events in the Arab world | DW | 05.02.2021

Pfizer Vaccination safe says EMA: Deaths After Pfizer COVID Vaccines Not Linked to Shots, Says European Medicines Agency - by Aristos Georgiou

No link has been found between the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and several fatalities in Europe involving people who died after receiving a COVID-19 shot, regulators said Friday. The finding was reported in the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) first safety update on the vaccine, which was authorized for emergency use in the European Union in December.

In the update, the EMA said its safety committee had assessed deaths reported after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, including those in frail and elderly people.

Read more at: Deaths After Pfizer COVID Vaccines Not Linked to Shots, Says European Medicines Agency

China Coronavirus vaccine as diplomatic weapon: China uses coronavirus vaccine to expand influence - Opinion

If the pandemic weren't so serious —deadly serious, in fact — it would actually be funny to watch all of the missteps and made-up figures the government has issued. A walk through the Serbian capital almost gives one the impression that everything is just fine, that COVID-19 sidestepped Serbia on its way elsewhere. Cafes and restaurants are open for business. People continue to crowd into local shopping malls. Most of them seem to have forgotten their masks. And those wearing them are doing so incorrectly, with their noses fully exposed.

The Russian and Chinese vaccines do not have regulatory approval in Western countries. And that's why the difficulties the EU and Washington are that much harder to take. These delays will cost lives, and governments across Europe are under pressure to deliver for their citizens. Read more at: Opinion: China uses coronavirus vaccine to expand influence | Opinion | DW | 30.01.2021