Day: June 30, 2021

The nationwide number of Covid-19 infections, cumulated since March 2020, has reached 2,121 including 1,981 recoveries and three deaths.

The National Taskforce Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control told a press conference in Vientiane on Jun 30 that 20 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours including 16 imported cases and four local transmissions.

The imported cases included nine in Savannakhet, six in Champassak, and one in Khammuan.

All of the new local transmissions were recorded in Vientiane province.

As of Jun 28, 2021 over 1.46 million people across the country had been vaccinated against Covid-19 with over 916,000 given first doses and more than 544,000 given second doses.

Source: Lao News Agency

GENEVA – The World Health Organization has certified China, the most populous country in the world, as malaria-free.

It has taken China seven decades to reach this milestone. The country has gone from 30 million cases of malaria in the 1940s to zero cases today.

Director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Program Pedro Alonso tells VOA the achievement should act as an inspiration to other malaria endemic countries around the world.

“China, that at one point had 30 million cases of malaria every year and I would place that country among the top two burdened countries in the world can actually drive down malaria and get rid of this scourge of mankind,” Alonso said.

China is the first country in the WHO Western Pacific Region to be awarded a malaria-free certification in more than three decades. Other countries in the region that have achieved that status include Australia, Singapore, and Brunei.

Globally, 40 countries and territories have been declared malaria-free. The most recent include El Salvador, Algeria, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uzbekistan.

Eliminating malaria is a long, complex process involving many factors. Alonso says economic development, improvement in peoples’ living conditions and the implementation of measures aimed at preventing, controlling, and treating malaria are critical for success.

“Vector control mostly through insecticide-treated bed nets will for the years to come remain the backbone of our prevention efforts. Artemisinin combination therapies will remain the backbone of our treatment efforts,” Alonso said.

The WHO estimates there are still 229 million new cases of malaria annually, leading to more than 400,000 deaths. Africa is home to 94 percent of those cases and deaths.

Alonso says the mosquito in Africa is very effective in the transmission of malaria. This he says is one of the many reasons why it is particularly challenging to rid the continent of the disease.

“And of course, all of this is compounded by lack of economic and social development, difficulties in communication, poverty, housing, lack of electricity. So, it is a compounded effect. It is where China was 60 years ago…and, we are having a lot of difficulty, even to maintain the gains achieved over the last 20 years,” Alonso said.

While substantial progress in the prevention and control of malaria is possible with today’s available tools, Alonso says only a highly effective vaccine can eradicate the disease.

The WHO malaria chief says he is cautiously optimistic that such a vaccine is on the horizon. He notes a pilot project to develop the world’s first malaria vaccine, RTS,S, in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has been shown to provide partial protection against malaria in young children.

He says the vaccine, which was introduced in 2019, is likely not to be the hoped-for game changer everyone seeks. But he adds it is a very good start.

Source: Voice of America

“Better than nothing.”

That’s one infectious disease expert’s assessment of Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine, following reports that hundreds of Indonesian health care workers who had received the vaccine caught the disease anyway.

At least 10 doctors have died despite having been fully vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine, according to the Indonesian Medical Association.

It’s unclear how widespread these “breakthrough” infections are. It’s also not clear how severe most of the infections are. Little peer-reviewed data on the vaccine are available.

What information is available suggests that the vaccine is less potent than others, especially against the highly contagious delta variant that was first detected in India.

However, access to more effective vaccines is limited in much of the world, experts note. Indonesia is one of dozens of countries where the Chinese company’s vaccine makes up a substantial part of the available doses.

While the shortage of published peer-reviewed data makes it hard to evaluate the vaccine, a few available studies provide a glimpse.

The government of Uruguay released data earlier this month showing CoronaVac reduced COVID-19 infections by 61%, hospitalizations by 92% and deaths by 95%.

Although not peer-reviewed, the study is one of a few that compare CoronaVac with another vaccine.

Pfizer-BioNTech

The Pfizer-BioNTech shot performed better against infections in general in the study, lowering rates by 78%. But hospitalizations and deaths were about the same.

It’s not clear what the dominant variant was during the study, however.

A key measure of vaccine potency is the level of neutralizing antibodies — the proteins the immune system produces that prevent the virus from infecting cells.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines produce very high levels of these antibodies, which help maintain protection against variants, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

“Yes, you’re getting some breakthrough infections with the delta variant, but they tend not to be serious infections,” he said. “People aren’t being hospitalized or losing their lives because of COVID-19.”

“When you look at some of the data on the Sinovac vaccine,” he added, “the levels of virus-neutralizing antibody, even after two doses, can still be quite low.”

The Sinovac vaccine produced lower levels of these antibodies than seven other vaccines, including those from Pfizer, Moderna, University of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, according to a study in the journal Nature Medicine.

The antibody response is even less effective against the delta variant, which has exploded in Indonesia and many parts of the world.

It’s not clear, however, exactly what that decline means for patients. The vaccine still offers protection against the most serious forms of the disease, a Chinese official told state media.

In China’s first delta outbreak, in Guangdong province earlier this month, “none of those vaccinated infections became severe cases, and none of the severe cases were vaccinated,” said Feng Zijian, former deputy director at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, supplies of other vaccines are arriving slowly in much of the world.

“Sometimes, that’s all people have access to,” Hotez said. “It’s better than nothing.”

Source: Voice of America