Moderna Vaccine Receives Emergency Approvals

Mexico has begun vaccination campaigns. However, COVID-19 contagion is far from being under control. This week, the UK imposed a new lockdown due to a new COVID-19 variant, which makes it highly transmittable. In Mexico, states including Mexico City and Nuevo León keep registering emergency hospital occupancy scenarios, while the whole country reports record figures in cases and deaths almost on a daily basis.

Here is the Week in Health!

NATIONAL

-COFEPRIS authorized the emergency use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 in Mexico, reported Deputy Minister of Health, Hugo López-Gatell. This vaccine will be produced in Mexico and Argentina for Latin America with the support of the Slim Foundation.

-President López Obrador announced that Mexicans living illegally in the US will receive the vaccine from the Mexican government in case they are refused by US authorities. However, he ensured that Mexico will approach the US to prevent this from happening.

-The fourth Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shipment arrived to Mexico. The flight carrying 44,850 vaccine doses arrived to the AICM and on Jan. 12, 19 and 26, the country will receive 43,800 doses each day. 

-The COVAX vaccine alliance was scheduled to begin vaccine distribution in March. However, WHO has announced that the process might begin this same month. This program, which Mexico is part of, will grant access to two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses.

-Rafael Gual, Director General of CANIFARMA shared with MBN one of the main objectives for the pharmaceutical industry this 2021. Check out his input on this article. 

INTERNATIONAL

-The new COVID-19 variant (which is said to be up to 70 percent more contagious than the original virus) has pushed the UK into lockdown again. This new variant has raised global concerns and hurried vaccination plans in several countries. In the US, where there are already registered cases of this new variant, the FDA has recently approved another COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna.

-Vaccine emergency approvals keep coming around the globe. These are the most recent additions:

• EMA and Israel have approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Canada has approved this vaccine in full.
• India authorized emergency use of the national vaccine development from the company Bharat Biotech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine development.
• The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was also approved for emergency use in the UK, Argentina and Mexico.
• Sinopharm’s vaccine has been approved in China UAR, Bahrain and in Egypt for its emergency use.

-In 2020, Wuhan was declared to be ground zero of the COVID19 pandemic. This was the first place where the COVID-19 outbreak was identified and, therefore, a city that WHO officials where going to investigate. WHO investigations were to begin in August 2020 but full access of WHO officials was not possible. This week, officials where scheduled to begin the investigation. However, China has denied them access to the country. According to Chinese authorities, the paperwork for this process is inconclusive, which is why they are being held back. "I am very disappointed with this news," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom said in an unusual criticism.