New strain of Covid-19 enters China after British returnees test positive

China has detected its first imported case of the new variant of the coronavirus which is spreading rapidly in Britain, according to a publication from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The variant was detected in a 23-year-old female student returning to China from Britain, who was tested in Shanghai on December 14, according to the latest edition of China CDC Weekly. The case “poses a significant potential threat to the prevention and control of Covid-19 in China,” the publication said. Vaccine for the general population Meanwhile, the drug regulator has approved the country’s first coronavirus vaccine for general public use, a sign of confidence in the experimental injections the country plans to roll out inside and beyond its borders. borders. China’s National Medicines Administration has cleared a Covid-19 vaccine developed by state-owned China National Biotec Group, a unit of Sinopharm, officials told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. With the approval, the vaccine – which has been cleared for emergency use in China since mid-year along with other leading vaccines – will be made commercially available, meaning it can be administered to the general population. U.S. regulators in Singapore have approved vaccines over the past month, including vaccines developed by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, but these have been widely intended for emergency use, a status granted by the China to its developers months ago. China will target members of the population at higher risk for its vaccinations, including the elderly and people with pre-existing illnesses, then release the vaccines to the general public, said Zeng Yixin, deputy minister of the National Commission. health of the country. the briefing. The country has already administered more than 4.5 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, including 3 million alone since mid-December, Zeng said. It is said to aim to vaccinate 50 million people against the virus by early February, ahead of the annual Lunar New Year holiday. The ratio of side effects, including allergies, is around two in 1 million, Zeng said Thursday. Vaccine for Pakistan Pakistan has decided to pre-book 1.1 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned Sinopharm, the health ministry said here Thursday, as the number of coronavirus cases hit 479,715 after that 2,475 new infections were detected in the country. China on Thursday granted conditional approval to the country’s first Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm.

The approval came a day after Sinopharm said its vaccine had 79.34% efficacy and a 99.52% positive conversion rate for antibodies in interim results from Phase III clinical trials. The decision to procure the vaccine was made at a special cabinet committee meeting on Wednesday after Sinopharm said its vaccine was 79.34% effective, the Department of National Health Services said. The Pakistan Medicines Regulatory Authority (Drap) has yet to approve emergency use of the drug which, once approved, would be given free to all frontline health workers in the first quarter of 2021.

Global deaths cross 1.8 million mark The worldwide death toll from Covid-19 topped 1.8 million even as Tokyo saw a record number of new infections, and Japan has warned it could consider a state of emergency if the new outbreak does not can be contained. Governments around the world have called on their citizens to celebrate the New Year at home. Cities that had gone weeks without new infections, including Beijing and Melbourne, are now reporting clusters, and the new, highly transmissible strain of the virus has been found in Singapore and California. The variant is more transmissible and appears to affect a greater proportion of people under the age of 20, according to a report. Bloomberg Moderna shows 94.1% efficacy in UK trial: study The results of the main analysis of the ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine from the American biotech company Moderna revealed a 94.1% efficacy of the drug in preventing symptomatic infections and serious illness , according to a peer-reviewed study. The study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that among more than 30,000 participants randomized to receive the vaccine or a placebo, 11 in the vaccinated group developed symptomatic Covid-19 compared with 185 participants who received the placebo. . PTI Putin fights to sell Russian vaccine at odds with the West Russia accuses the West of denigrating its achievements in the global race to defeat Covid-19 as its attempts to capture key markets for its Sputnik V vaccine collide with demands from regulators. “We understand the game,” Kirill Dmitriev, managing director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which has supported the development of Sputnik V and is negotiating its international deployment, said in an interview. “It’s a combination of misunderstandings, strong biases, and, really, very strong efforts to undermine the Russian vaccine.” Bloomberg

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