In this file photo taken on January 10, 2022 a health worker shows a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus disease COVID-19 at a vaccination centre in Santiago. (JAVIER TORRES / AFP)
TORONTO / WASHINGTON / HELSINKI/ UNITED NATIONS – As governments prepare to live with COVID-19, some are questioning how much to rely on drugmakers to adapt vaccines to ward off future virus variants amid signs of tension between companies and regulators over the best approach, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
Some vaccine experts say government agencies should fund and help develop a new generation of COVID shots, and seek innovation from smaller developers, as they did to identify current vaccines.
"We have established a research infrastructure that could do this relatively reasonably rapidly if we primed the pump and created the same kind of plan for second-generation vaccines as we did for the first-generation vaccines," Dr. Larry Corey, a virologist who is overseeing US government-backed COVID vaccine trials, told Reuters.
BioNTech and Pfizer, who developed the western world's most widely used COVID vaccine, recently clashed with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) over the best strategy for developing a new vaccine against the Omicron variant, and whatever may follow, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters
BioNTech and Pfizer, who developed the western world's most widely used COVID vaccine, recently clashed with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) over the best strategy for developing a new vaccine against the Omicron variant, and whatever may follow, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
An EMA spokesperson said the agency, along with other regulators, are encouraging companies to explore vaccines that target multiple variants.
On Wednesday, BioNTech said the companies would broaden their trial to test a shot targeting Omicron and the original version of the coronavirus.
BioNTech said it decided to test a combination shot to scientifically validate decisions on the best vaccine strategy for the near future.
A BioNTech spokesperson declined to comment on the company's discussions with EMA. A Pfizer spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Moderna Inc, which has also enjoyed great success with its COVID vaccine, is testing a shot that targets Omicron and the original coronavirus, aiming to have it ready in the fall.
"We believe this may lead to the best breadth in protection," top Moderna scientist Jacqueline Miller said at a company event this month.
GlaxoSmithKline is also working with German biotech CureVac on a vaccine that targets multiple coronavirus variants.
European and US public health officials are pushing for better tools to fight COVID. Current vaccines are very effective against severe disease and death, but no longer against transmission, and immunity levels tend to wane within months.
Some health officials question whether companies that have reaped tens of billions of dollars from first-generation COVID shots and stand to earn billions more from repeated boosters are willing to spend the money to find vaccines offering much broader and longer-lasting protection, which could take years.
Pfizer and BioNTech say their decisions are led by scientific findings. The European Union made a massive bet on future Pfizer/ BioNTech shots in a deal worth up to 35 billion euros ($39.04 billion). That agreement requires the drugmakers to revise their shots to deal with new variants.
WTO
There has been no agreement on the terms of a COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property deal among four key World Trade Organization members, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said, amid growing questions about the effort's future.
Tai told US lawmakers on Wednesday that "there has been no agreement" related to a proposed IP waiver text that was leaked to media earlier this month, as civil society groups urged President Joe Biden to reject the deal.
Tai called the text the "concept" of a compromise developed during discussions facilitated by WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala between the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa.
Her spokesperson, Adam Hodge, said Washington was still consulting on the issue, but the compromise worked out during the informal WTO-led discussions "offers the most promising path toward achieving a concrete and meaningful outcome."
In this file photo taken on May 15, 2021, people wait for their COVID-19 vaccine inside the International Conference Center during Peel Region's "Doses After Dark" overnight COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. (COLE BURSTON / AFP)
Canada
Much of Canada is facing a fresh COVID-19 wave just as authorities ease measures meant to curb the spread of the virus, emboldened by a brief drop in cases and relatively high vaccination rates.
Public health experts are urging caution as COVID-19 levels in wastewater rise. Political analysts say looming elections in Ontario and Quebec, the most populous of Canada's 10 provinces, could deter politicians from reinstating pandemic health measures.
Meanwhile, less testing is making it hard for individuals to do the personal risk assessments politicians are urging.
Most Canadians supported the restrictions and other pandemic measures in place for the past two years, though a vocal minority opposed them, prompting a three-week protest in early 2022 that paralyzed Ottawa and multiple international border crossings. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to end the unrest.
Finland
Finnish medical experts believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, may never become a common seasonal flu, Helsinki's Ilta-Sanomat newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The paper quoted Ilkka Julkunen, professor of virology at the University of Turku, as saying that SARS-CoV-2 clearly differs from other seasonal coronaviruses that cause the flu.
"I find it unlikely that the virus would change so dramatically. I don't see that the coronavirus would become much less dangerous for at least a few years," he said.
While the Omicron coronavirus variant is widely considered less likely to cause severe disease and require hospital treatment, Julkunen and Olli Vapalahti, professor of zoonotic virology at the University of Helsinki, agree that Omicron is not harmless.
Ghana
Ghana will start producing COVID-19 vaccines locally by January 2024, Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said Wednesday.
Akufo-Addo told the audience while delivering the 2022 state of the nation address before parliament.
"The Vaccine Manufacturing Committee set up in the wake of the pandemic has drawn a comprehensive strategy for domestic vaccine production and the establishment of the National Vaccine Institute to implement the strategy to commence the first phase of commercial production by January 2024," said the president.
The president said the necessity for vaccine self-sufficiency arose from lessons learned from vaccine nationalism played out "blatantly by more powerful countries."
Uganda
Uganda's Ministry of Health has further eased COVID-19 restrictions as the east African country's positive cases are consistently dropping to near zero.
The ministry has stopped retesting of all incoming travelers from the east African region provided they arrive with test results from their point of departure.
Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the ministry spokesperson told Xinhua Wednesday that the suspension took immediate effect.
Children seat by their shelter in Goudebou, a camp that welcomes more than 11,000 Malian refugees in northern Burkina Faso, on International Refugee Day on June 20, 2021. (OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP)
UNICEF
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, 23 countries – home to around 405 million schoolchildren – are yet to fully reopen schools, with many schoolchildren at risk of dropping out, said the UN Children's Fund on Wednesday.
Over the past two years, nearly 147 million children missed more than half of their in-person schooling, amounting to 2 trillion hours of lost learning, UNICEF said in a report called "Are children really learning?"
"When children are not able to interact with their teachers and their peers directly, their learning suffers. When they are not able to interact with their teachers and peers at all, their learning loss may become permanent," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a press release.
"This rising inequality in access to learning means that education risks becoming the greatest divider, not the greatest equalizer. When the world fails to educate its children, we all suffer."
In addition to data on learning loss, the report points to emerging evidence that shows many children did not return to school when their classrooms reopened.
US President Joe Biden receives a second booster shot of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in the South Court Auditorium, next to the White House in Washington DC on March 30, 2022. (NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP)
US
US President Joe Biden rolled up his sleeve for a second COVID-19 booster shot on Wednesday as his administration rolled out efforts to help Americans live with the coronavirus, including a new website and a renewed push for vaccinations and funding.
"If we fail to invest, we leave ourselves vulnerable if another wave hits," Biden said in remarks at the White House to launch COVID.gov, a clearinghouse of information aimed at helping people manage the virus as they seek a return to normalcy.
On Tuesday, US health officials authorized a second booster shot for Americans age 50 and older and those who are immunocompromised, two years after the start of the pandemic.
Biden, 79, received his fourth dose of the Pfizer Inc /BioNTech SE vaccine. A second booster of Moderna Inc's shot also was authorized.
This file photo taken on February 24, 2020 shows the logo of the World Health Organization (WHO) at their headquarters in Geneva. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)
WHO
The World Health Organization on Wednesday released an updated plan for COVID-19, laying out key strategies that, if implemented in 2022, would allow the world to end the emergency phase of the pandemic.
The plan includes three possible scenarios for how the virus might evolve in the coming year.
"Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the COVID-19 virus continues to evolve, but the severity of disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing.
In this base-case scenario, which serves as the WHO's working model, the virus causes less severe outbreaks with periodic spikes in transmission as immunity wanes. Booster shots might be needed for those most at risk. The virus would likely fall into a seasonal pattern, with peaks in colder months, similar to influenza.
In the WHO's rosier, best-case scenario, future variants would be "significantly less severe", protection from severe disease would be long-lasting, without the need for future boosting or significant changes to current vaccines.
In the worst-case scenario, the virus transforms into a new, highly transmissible and deadly threat. In this scenario, vaccines would be less effective and immunity from severe disease and death would wane rapidly, requiring significant changes to current vaccines a broad campaign of booster shots for vulnerable groups.
To help end the emergency, WHO called on countries to continue or increase virus surveillance capabilities to allow for early warning signs of significant changes in the virus. It also called for improved detection of long COVID, to track and reduce long-term disability after the pandemic has ended.
