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Monday, May 24, 2021, 10:10
Virus: WHO sets new targets for vaccinating world's poorest
By Agencies
Monday, May 24, 2021, 10:10 By Agencies

A woman receives her second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination campaign in Taboga Island, Panama, May 21, 2021. (ARNULFO FRANCO / AP)

BUENOS AIRES / HAVANA / ADDIS ABABA / NICOSIA / GENEVA – The COVID-19 pandemic is being perpetuated by a "scandalous inequity" in vaccine distribution, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday as he set new targets for protecting people in the poorest countries.

"The world remains in a very dangerous situation," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in remarks at the opening of the annual assembly of health ministers from its 194 member states.

"As of today, more cases have been reported so far this year than in the whole of 2020. On current trends, the number of deaths will overtake last year's total within the next three weeks. This is very tragic," he said.

The WHO chief urged countries to donate vaccine doses to COVAX to enable 10% of the populations of all countries to be inoculated by September. This meant vaccinating 250 million more people in just four months, he said

He said more than 75 percent of all vaccines had been administered in just 10 countries.

The COVAX facility has delivered 72 million vaccine doses to 125 countries and economies since February - barely sufficient for 1 percent of their populations, Tedros said.

Tedros urged countries to donate vaccine doses to COVAX to enable 10 percent of the populations of all countries to be inoculated by September and 30 percent by year-end. This meant vaccinating 250 million more people in just four months, he said.

Tedros also called on vaccine manufacturers to give COVAX the first right of refusal on new volumes of vaccines, or to commit 50 percent of their volumes to COVAX this year.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for the WHO to be empowered to visit countries rapidly in case of outbreaks with potential to spark a pandemic, and to access data.

Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in separate pre-recorded remarks to the assembly, called for the UN agency's funding to be improved and backed the idea of a new international treaty to prevent pandemics.

Croatia

Croatia said it will ease pandemic measures such as the size of gatherings and restaurant opening hours, Deputy Prime Minister Davor Bozinovic said.

Africa

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached 4,759,772 as of Monday noon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The death toll stood at 128,463 while a total of 4,303,326 patients across the continent had recovered from the disease, the Africa CDC said.

Cyprus

Health authorities in Cyprus reported on Monday the country's first death in a person who developed blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19.

Elena Panagiotopoulou, deputy director of the Health Ministry's Pharmaceutical Services, said that the 39-year-old British woman died in a Nicosia hospital. She was treated there after developing blood clotting 15 days after receiving the first AstraZeneca jab on May 6.

Panagiotopoulou added that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will be informed in detail on the case.

On Sunday, Cyprus reported another thrombosis case related to a woman aged 40, who had also received the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The woman is being treated in hospital in a stable condition, according to her doctors.

Panagiotopoulou said that in addition to these two cases, three other cases of blood clotting are being investigated, but it is not yet clear whether they are connected to the COVID-19 vaccination.

US 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating “relatively few” reports of a heart problem in adolescents and young adults after a COVID-19 vaccination.

A report from a meeting of the agency’s safety group on May 17 said that most discovered cases of myocarditis “appear to be mild” and could be unrelated to vaccinations. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle often found after an infection.

The cases were mostly in adolescents and young adults and more often in males than females. The report added that the cases occurred more often after a second dose than the first and were typically found within four days after infection.

Meanwhile, US federal Health officials are ramping up their surveillance of the highly transmissible COVID-19 variant first identified in India as experts warn that under-vaccinated areas in the US could become hot spots for the mutation.

The US reported just over 18,700 new cases Saturday, capping the first week since June with no days of infections exceeding 30,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg. Average daily infections dropped to about 25,600, compared with almost 217,500 at the end of the first week that vaccines were rolled out in the US in mid-December.

A further 481 fatalities were recorded, capping a week with the fewest fatalities since the end of March 2020.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said all public school students will return to their school buildings come September and that a remote option will no longer be available.

ALSO READ: Britons shun PM Johnson's call to take 2 virus tests per week

Cuba

Cuba reported 1,221 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 133,053 infections, as well as 14 more deaths, bringing the death toll to 877, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Sunday.

Francisco Duran, the ministry's director of hygiene and epidemiology, explained that of the total number of cases registered in the last day, 43 had been imported.

Havana reported 618 cases of COVID-19 in its 15 municipalities and continues to have the highest incidence rate in the country, with more than 445 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The special municipality of Isla de la Juventud reported on Sunday the first case of the virus after 30 days without any reported infections.

The ministry has been carrying out a massive vaccination program in seven municipalities of Havana for almost two weeks and will continue in the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, and Isla de la Juventud.

Argentina

Argentina reported 24,801 new COVID-19 cases, taking the national tally to 3,539,484, the Ministry of Health said Sunday.

The ministry said 375 more deaths were logged, bringing the death toll to 74,063.

There are currently 358,472 active cases with 6,214 patients in intensive care units, said the ministry.

More than 11.1 million doses of vaccines have been administered since the country began its inoculation campaign in December 2020, and over 2.4 million people have received two doses, according to the ministry.

France

France’s daily COVID-19 death toll fell to a more than seven-month low of 70 on Sunday, while the seven-day moving average of daily new cases slipped below the 13,000 level for the first time since late 2020.

Health ministry figures published on Sunday also showed the number of people being treated for the disease in intensive care units (ICUs) has fallen for the 20th consecutive day, by 29 to 3,515, almost half the total five weeks ago.

France has been gradually loosening its lockdown since the start of May and hopes to lift all major restrictions by the end of June.

The country’s COVID-19 contact-tracing app has now been downloaded by 16.5 million people, or 24.6% of the French population, the minister for digital affairs said earlier, surpassing the minimum level it needed to work efficiently.

After a slow start, France’s vaccination campaign has been gaining pace lately, with 34.5% of the total population having received at least one shot as of Sunday and 14.5% two shots.

Italy

Italy on Sunday reported the lowest number of daily coronavirus-related deaths this year, according to Ansa. There were 3,995 new virus cases compared with 4,717 a day before and 72 deaths compared with 125 on Saturday.

UK

The UK government pushed back on claims from the former chief aide of Prime Minister Boris Johnson that officials pursued a herd-immunity strategy in the early days of the pandemic. Dominic Cummings unleashed a series of tweets on Saturday criticizing the UK’s response.

He said that letting enough citizens become infected in order to reach natural herd immunity was the “official plan in all docs/graphs/meetings” until early March 2020, when it became clear that such a policy would lead to catastrophe.

When asked about the allegations in an interview on the BBC on Sunday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that was “not at all” the plan. Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, also said it wasn’t the nation’s strategy.

Another 2,235 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,462,538, according to official figures released Sunday.

The country also reported another five coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 127,721. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

Nearly 38 million people, or more than 70 percent of adults in Britain, have been given the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine, according to official figures.

READ MORE: Germany imposes UK travel curbs due to variant from India

Germany

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has promised a wide-ranging easing of pandemic restrictions during the summer if the country’s seven-day incidence rate falls below 20. “Last summer the rate was below 20. We should aim for that again,” Spahn told the Sunday edition of Bild. According to the Robert Koch Institute, Germany has a seven-seven-day incidence rate of 64.5. That means that there are 64.5 new infections per 100,000 individuals over a period of seven days.

Ecuador

Ecuador reported on Sunday 1,011 new COVID-19 infections and six more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the caseload to 418,851 and death toll to 14,764, the Ministry of Public Health said.

The province of Pichincha led in new infections in the last day with 333 cases, including 295 in the capital Quito, the epicenter of the pandemic in the South American country.

The Ecuadorian capital maintains a growing trend of contagion that has not been able to be contained due to the persistence of citizens' lax behavior defying COVID-19 control measures.

Colombia 

Colombia reported 496 more deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the nationwide death toll to 84,724, the country's ministry of health and social protection said Sunday.

The ministry said 21,669 new infections were reported, bringing the national tally to 3,232,456.

A total of 8,235,482 doses of vaccines have been administered in the South American country, with 3,109,420 people fully inoculated.

Russia 

Russia on Monday reported 8,406new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours, including 2,487 in Moscow, pushing the national infection tally to 5,009,911 since the pandemic began.

The government coronavirus taskforce said that 319 people had died of coronavirus-related causes, taking its death toll to 118,801. The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and said that Russia recorded around 250,000 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to March 2021.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia registered 293 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking its nationwide tally to 269,194 as of Sunday evening, the country's health ministry said.

Meanwhile, eight new deaths were reported, bringing the national death toll to 4,076, the ministry said.

The East African country reported 1,677 more recoveries over the past day, taking the national count to 228,757.

Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous country, is among the hardest hit by COVID-19 in Africa in terms of caseload, following South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia. 

Ukraine

The number of new daily coronavirus infections in Ukraine decreased to 1,334 cases over the past 24 hours, the lowest level since August 2020, the health ministry data showed on Monday.

Ukraine, which has a population of 41 million, has been among the most affected European countries so far, with around 2.2 million COVID-19 cases and 49,436 deaths as of May 24.

The data showed Ukraine registered 68 deaths in the past day.

The parliament last week fired health minister Maksym Stepanov, accusing him of failing to supply adequate vaccine doses to fight the pandemic.

He was replaced with deputy minister Viktor Lyashko, who promised to speed up vaccinations, including by trying to make vaccines domestically.

Mexico

Mexico's health ministry on Sunday registered 50 new confirmed deaths from COVID-19, the lowest daily increase reported from the pandemic in over a year, according to government data.

The rise, which brought the official death toll to 221,647, was the smallest since the final Sunday of April 2020, and it follows a steady decline in new daily infections in Mexico during recent weeks as a vaccine roll-out gathers pace.

Mexico has said the real number of coronavirus deaths and infections is likely considerably higher than the official tally. Separate government data has suggested the death toll could be at least 60 percent above the confirmed figure.

The ministry on Sunday also reported 1,274 new COVID-19 infections, lifting the total to 2,396,604.


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