Science Shines a Ray of Hope Upon the World

Managing a pandemic has been a titanic task for all healthcare systems. However, Mexico still managed to tackled internal reforms to “cleanse corruption from the sector,” as President López Obrador says. Have these measures been effective so far or does Mexico still have shortages to be attended?

Here is the Week in Health!

NATIONAL

-Mexico City is in danger of a second COVID-19 outbreak. Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Durango, Queretaro and Zacatecas join the capital city in this negative tendency.

-An IMSS executive informed Animal Político that neither the institute nor any other public health institute in Mexico has the tuberculosis vaccine. According to the statement, the private sector might suffer from this shortage too. The problem has been present since September and there is still no clear supply plan that IMSS staff is aware of. In numbers, this means that around 30-35,000 newborns, from IMSS only, have missed the vaccine. Tuberculosis is a communicable disease that constitutes one of the Top 10 causes of death in the world and the main one caused by a single infectious agent.

-President López Obrador is to release a presidential executive order to allow foreign companies to enter the Mexican market without a COFEPRIS approval if they have sanitary registries with FDA or EMA. Deputy Minister of Health Hugo López-Gatell says that in no way this means that Mexico will endanger patients with low quality medicines.

INTERNATIONAL

-Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine preliminary results show over 90 effectiveness to prevent contagion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Read more about this development and distribution plans in this article.

-There is an approved COVID-19 treatment, as well. The development, tackled by American company Eli Lilly, received an emergency approval from FDA on Tuesday. This COVID-19-targeted drug has shown significant results on avoiding hospitalization and improvements in patients that had just been infected.

-Brazil has suspended clinical trials on the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine called Sinovac. Anvisa announced this after a volunteer presented a severe adverse reaction during the trial. The agency gave no in-depth explanation for the event.

-Joe Biden is now the President-elect of the US. Management of the COVID-19 pandemic is one of Biden’s primary concerns. He has already appointed a group of advisors to support him in these efforts. Read more about his plans for COVID-19 in this article.

-Russian vaccine development against COVID-19 Sputnik V is said to be 92 percent effective against the virus. The development is currently on Phase 3 of clinical trials but primary results have been considered to determine that percentage of efficiency.

-Argentina approved the medicinal use of Cannabis and its sale in oils at pharmacies.