VAKCINA

A Singapore study has found that COVID-19 vaccination provides about 69 per cent protection against infection by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, regardless of symptoms, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Wednesday (Jul 7).

Citing the study by the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and Ministry of Health (MOH), he said the data also showed that the vaccine's protection against symptomatic disease is “between 80 and 90 per cent”.

“Effectiveness of vaccination against severe COVID-19 disease, requiring oxygen supplementation, ICU (intensive care unit) care or death, is at 93 per cent,” he added.

NCID and MOH recently concluded a study of about 1,000 household contacts of COVID-19 cases between September 2020 and end-May this year.

These findings will be “submitted for international publication”, and is Singapore’s contribution to the understanding of the Delta variant and vaccines, said the Health Minister.
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Under the national vaccination programme, which uses the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna vaccines, about 5.9 million doses have been administered. About 2.1 million people - about 39 per cent of Singapore's population - have received two doses.

Local Cases in the Last 28 Days by Vaccination Status and Severity of Condition

Here we describe a transmission of a Delta variant containing SARS-CoV-2 strain, between family members associated with events surrounding a wedding with 92 attendees, near Houston, Texas. Attendance required guests be fully vaccinated and took place outdoors in a large, open-air tent. To date, 6 individuals have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, all patients were symptomatic, one patient severely enough to receive monoclonal antibody infusion treatment (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.) and one patient has died. Encounter timings and viral sequence similarities suggest the strain containing the Delta variant was transmitted to wedding guests from two patients travelling from India. With no history of vaccine failure in these patients, our observations suggest these are true cases of vaccine breakthrough, mediated by the Delta variant. 
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In early April, 2021, Patient 0a, a man with no comorbidities, and Patient 0b, a woman with diabetes, travelled from India to attend a wedding in Texas (designated 0a and 0b due to difficulty establishing true patient 0). Both tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 by qPCR as part of the pre-flight criteria. Formal wedding events were held outdoors and in a large open-air tent and attendance required full vaccination (Patient 0a and 0b travelled to Houston 10 days after their second doses of Covaxin BBV152, Table 1). Patients 1-5 confirmed having close encounters with Patient 0a and 0b at the wedding. Events were attended by fewer than guests.
On the evening of the first night of the wedding, Patient 0b complained of fatigue but associated it with diabetes and jet lag. Patient 0a developed a cough two days after the wedding and both him and Patient 0b developed a fever three days after. Patient 0a and 0b tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nasal swab qPCR 4 days after the wedding at a third-party site. Patient 0a’s symptoms progressed over the following days and was admitted to the hospital on day 6 post wedding. He was transferred to Baylor St. Luke’s hospital in the Texas Medical Center with worsening symptoms. A month after the wedding, Patient 0a died from complications of COVID-19.
Five other guests have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 following confirmed interactions with Patient 0a and 0b. All positive patients received Pfizer BNT162b2, Moderna mRNA-1273, or Covaxin BBV152 (Table 1). Six of these have experienced symptoms of COVID-19 (Table 1).
Patient 1, who received the Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine developed severe symptoms and was admitted to Baylor St. Luke’s hospital for monoclonal antibody infusion treatment (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.) on ten days after the wedding.

Summary @FT of vaccine effectiveness, AZ & mRNA, against Delta in multiple reported studies. The Israel MoH is an outlier. The others all show high levels of protection with 2 doses vs severe illness; mRNA vs infection ~85-90%https://t.co/6KYF1jjOXw @donatopmancini @jburnmurdoch pic.twitter.com/Rh95jM4P3q

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 9, 2021

Pfizer plans to ask U.S. regulators to authorize a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine within the next month, the drugmaker's top scientist said https://t.co/NeIw8YGxJc

— Reuters (@Reuters) July 9, 2021

Pfizer's chief scientific officer, Mikael Dolsten, said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% in June.

GOOD NEWS: Speedy vaccination programs save lives.

Prof. @Alison_Galvani & colleagues find that without a U.S. vaccination program, there would have been approximately 279,000 additional COVID-19 deaths & up to 1.25 million more hospitalizations.https://t.co/dqmnFt7kK9 pic.twitter.com/JjuXJuSdCL

— Yale School of Public Health (@YaleSPH) July 7, 2021

Target achieved!

We have delivered enough vaccines to EU countries to vaccinate fully at least 70% of EU adults still this month.

COVID-19 is not yet defeated. But we are prepared to deliver more vaccines.

We will only come out of this crisis together.
#SafeVaccines pic.twitter.com/5yYCtbqBxc

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 10, 2021

Israel offers third shot of Pfizer #SARSCoV2 / #COVID19 vaccine to adults at risk: https://t.co/ZWi1feJavM

— Sociability (@Sociability) July 11, 2021

European efforts to assess Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine stymied by data gaps
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sputnik-regulator-idUSKBN2EJ0ET

Reuters reported last month that the European Medicines Agency (EMA)’s review of the drug’s safety and efficacy was delayed because a June 10 deadline to submit data on the vaccine’s clinical trials was missed, according to one of those people, who is close to the agency, and another person familiar with the matter. The EMA is the European Union’s medicines watchdog.

The hitches go beyond that one deadline, the person close to the agency said. As of early June, the EMA had received hardly any manufacturing data, and the clinical data the agency had received was incomplete, the person said.

Separately, an assessment of Sputnik V by a French delegation of scientists in advance of the EMA review found that the vaccine developers were unable to document that the so-called master cell bank, the initial building block of the vaccine, complied with specific EU regulation on preventing disease contamination, according to four people with knowledge of the delegation’s findings.

The person close to the EMA said notable missing clinical information during the EMA review included case report forms that record any adverse effects people experienced after receiving the jab in trials. It is standard practice for developers to submit such forms, this person added. It was also not clear how the scientists working on the vaccine tracked the outcomes of people given a placebo, the person said.

The watchdog rates such data shortcomings on a scale that goes from “critical” - the most serious - to “major” to “minor.” The person said nothing had met the critical threshold, “but there are several ‘majors,’” indicating issues that can be remedied but require much work. The person added they didn’t expect the review to be completed until after the summer.

Several people who have interacted with Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V and oversaw the clinical trials, attribute the repeated failure to provide some information to lack of experience in dealing with overseas regulators. “They are not used to working with a regulatory agency like the EMA,” the person close to the agency said, referring to Gamaleya’s scientists.

RDIF said Reuters’ reporting contained “false and inaccurate statements” based on anonymous sources who are attempting to harm Sputnik V as part of a disinformation campaign. RDIF suggested the vaccine could be under attack by the “Western pharmaceutical lobby,” without offering evidence of such a campaign.

U Srbiji će najverovatnije biti uvedena treća doza vakcine protiv koronavirusa, a preporuke građanima biće saopštene do 1. avgusta, piše dnevni list Politika.

Po navodima lista, Nacionalno telo za imunizaciju postiglo je načelni dogovor o davanju još jedne doze cepiva vakcinisanim građanima i to onima kojima je ugrožen imunitet zbog drugih oboljenja, prvenstveno osobama sa autoimunim bolestima, onima koji su na nekoj terapiji koja suprimira imunski odgovor, kao i pacijentima sa transplantiranim organima.

Dodatna doza vakcine biće preporučena i starijima od 80 godina koji imaju neko oboljenje, kao i nešto mlađim građanima koji imaju neko kardiovaskularno oboljenje a nemaju antitela.

Vaccines from China's Sinopharm and Sinovac could soon become the main source of immunizations for Covax to supply to the developing world https://t.co/b02bZ4IIno

— Bloomberg (@business) July 13, 2021

Soviet visuals 2021 pic.twitter.com/w8Sa75y6LY

— Tijana (@nistajaneznam) July 14, 2021

Predsednik najavio uvođenje lutrije kao stimulativne mere za vakcinaciju

Predsednik Srbije Aleksandar Vučić izjavio je da broj građana koji se vakcinišu nije dovoljan i da rastom broja novoobolelih situacija neće biti zabrinjavajuća za nedelju - dve, ali da će biti "za mesec i po dana", posebno što počinje sezona fudbalskih i košarkaših utakmica, i svi hoće pune hale", najavljujući kao stimulativnu meru i uvođenje lutrije.

„Strašno je neodgovorno od nekog ako se ne vakciniše, blago rečeno. Da ne pričam koliko je funkcionera koji to nisu učinili. Jutros sam jednom ministru rekao da se vakciniše. Opravdanja da je neko preležao koronu pa ne treba da se vakciniše ne znače ništa, nisu tačna“, rekao je Vučić.

Na pitanje da li će se, po uzoru na neke evropske zemlje, za ulazak u pozorišta, bioskope tražiti dokaz o vakcinaciji, on je rekao da su pred Ustavom svi građani ravnopravni i da on ne može da ga krši“.

„Kako da kažemo nekom ti možeš u šoping mol, a ti ne možeš“, rekao je Vučić, dodajući da je jasno šta lično misli i koliko se zalaže za vakcinisanje.

On je rekao da postoje „crne rupe“, odnosno područja gde je vakcijanija slaba, navodeći kao primere opštine Tutin, Novi Pazar, Ub, Lajkovac i druge, dodajući da je očito da u tome „nema ništa nacionalno orijentisano“.

„Čudni ljudi, ili mi nismo dobro uradili posao, biće da su to dobri ljudi ali mi nismo dobro radili. Ne znam šta sve da uradimo, sad ćemo da uvodimo lutriju i da ponovo izdvojimo novac, da platimo da bi se ljudi vakcinisali“, naglasio je Vučić.