Covid-19: 1.63 million vaccines suspended in Japan, WHO warns of the urgency to resume research on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 – archyde

The Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 4.45 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report drawn up on Wednesday August 25 by Agence France-Presse (AFP) from official sources. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that calculated from the figures official.

• In Japan, 1.63 million Moderna vaccines suspended for anomaly, extension of health measures

Japan announced Thursday to suspend the use of 1.63 million doses of the vaccine from the American biotech Moderna against Covid-19, after reports of the presence of impurities in three batches distributed in the country. Japanese pharmaceutical group Takeda, which imports and distributes Moderna’s vaccine in Japan, said in a statement it had received “Reports from several vaccination centers that foreign bodies were found in sealed vaccine tubes from specific batches”.

The Japanese group asked Moderna to lead a “Urgent investigation” on the subject. Asked by AFP, the American biotech was not immediately available to react to this information. Without detailing the nature of the impurities detected, Takeda specified that it had not yet received any reports concerning possible health risks linked to the doses affected. For its part, the Japanese health ministry said it would cooperate with Takeda to distribute alternative doses, in order to avoid an interruption of the national vaccination program, which has been accelerating for several months, after a slow start.

• In Australia, Sydney hospitals pitch emergency tents

More than 1,000 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded Thursday in Australia for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The rapid increase in the number of cases has forced two hospitals in Sydney to erect emergency tents in order to “Reduce delays” in the care of patients.

• Origins of SARS-CoV-2: research “at a standstill,” WHO experts alarm

The search for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 “Is at a standstill” and it is urgent to resume it, because the more time passes the more difficult it is to carry out, warn the experts who wrote a report on the subject for the WHO in March. “Antibodies decline over time: collect samples [animaux] and testing people who might have been exposed before December 2019 will therefore give less and less results ”, they warn in a column published on Wednesday by the scientific journal Nature.

According to American media, another report, requested by President Joe Biden from his intelligence services, does not make it possible to decide on the hypothesis of a leak at the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, a source of friction between Washington and Beijing.

• Vaccines: protection drops after six months, according to a British study

The protection against the coronavirus conferred by the vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca decreases significantly after six months, a British study indicates on Wednesday, arguing according to its authors in favor of recall campaigns.

• J&J says booster boosts vaccine protection

Pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson said on Wednesday that a second dose of its Covid-19 vaccine boosted immunity conferred by the first – and so far only – injection. In two clinical trials whose results have not yet been submitted to the scientific community, the extra dose generated antibody levels nine times higher than those seen four weeks after a first dose, J&J said in a statement.