France begins booster campaign
France has begun administering Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to people aged over-65 and those with underlying health conditions, as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads in the country.
France is the first big EU country to introduce widespread booster shots, with a nationwide campaign to start in nursing homes on September 12th.
People in France qualify for the jab if a minimum six-month period has passed since they were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Those who received the single-dose Janssen jab could get a booster shot of Pfizer or Moderna at least four weeks after they were first vaccinated.
France has been facing high numbers of confirmed infections since July, with a slight decrease in recent weeks, from more than 23,000 per day around mid-August to 17,000 now. But many fear a reverse of the trend as children go back to school after summer holidays.
Twelve million French children returned to school on Thursday, wearing facemasks, using sanitiser as they arrived and standing distanced from each other in school yards under strict rules aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.
ECDC says no urgent need for boosters
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday there was no urgent need for booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines for the fully vaccinated, citing data on the effectiveness of shots.
The evidence on real-world effectiveness shows that all vaccines authorised in the region are highly protective against Covid-19-related hospitalisation, severe disease and death, the ECDC said.
But the agency said extra doses can be considered for people who experience a limited response to the standard regimen, adding that these shots should be treated differently from booster doses.
Germany and France have announced they would begin giving boosters to vulnerable people and the immunocompromised from this month to protect citizens from the more infectious Delta variant.
The US has also started administering a third dose of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to those with compromised immunity.
Moderna recalled in Japan
Moderna Inc and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd on Wednesday said they are working with Japanese authorities to recall three batches of Covid-19 vaccine after an investigation found stainless steel contaminants in some vials.
Japanese authorities had suspended use of these batches of Moderna shots containing 1.63 million doses last week after being notified of the contamination issue.
Japan's health ministry said on Wednesday, based on information from the companies' investigation, that it did not believe the particles of stainless steel pose any additional health risk.
Moderna said the stainless steel contamination probably occurred during production, related to friction between two pieces of metal in the machinery that puts stoppers on the vials.
The contamination issue gained more attention after the Japanese health ministry said on Saturday that two men, aged 38 and 30, died in August within days of receiving their second Moderna doses. Each had received a dose from one of the suspended lots.
The cause of death in the two cases is still being investigated. Moderna and Takeda said in the joint statement that there was no evidence the fatalities were caused by the vaccine. "The relationship is currently considered to be coincidental," the companies said in the statement.
About 500,000 people have received shots from the three suspended Moderna batches, Taro Kono, Japan's minister in charge of the vaccination campaign, told reporters on Friday.
Janssen deliveries from Africa to EU halted
An arrangement whereby Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) was shipping Covid-19 vaccine doses to Europe that had been packaged in South Africa has been suspended, African Union (AU) envoy Strive Masiyiwa said on Thursday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month he was "stunned" by the arrangement, since Europe has very high vaccination rates while even the most vulnerable people in many African countries had not been vaccinated.
At the time the European Commission described it as a temporary agreement, while J&J had no comment when contacted by Reuters.
The shots packaged by J&J's South African partner Aspen that were already sent to Europe would be returned, Mr Masiyiwa told a news briefing organised by the AU's disease control body on Thursday.
US begins shipping doses to Kenya and Ghana
The United States will begin shipping more than two million doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine to Kenya and Ghana on Wednesday through the COVAX global distribution program, a White House official said.
The United States is sending 880,460 doses to Kenya and 1,229,620 doses to Ghana, the official said, the latest instalments in a US vaccine diplomacy push that has sent vaccines to dozens of countries.
The doses will be delivered through the COVAX facility, jointly run by the World Health Organisation and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).
