Tag Archives: WHO

WHO does not back vaccination passports for now – spokeswoman

By Reuters Staff

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization does not back requiring vaccination passports for travel due to uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission of the virus, as well as equity concerns, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

“We as WHO are saying at this stage we would not like to see the vaccination passport as a requirement for entry or exit because we are not certain at this stage that the vaccine prevents transmission,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.

“There are all those other questions, apart from the question of discrimination against the people who are not able to have the vaccine for one reason or another,” she told a U.N. news briefing.

The WHO now expects to review China’s COVID-19 vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac for possible emergency use listing around the end of April, Harris said.

“It’s not coming as quickly as we had hoped because we need more data,” she said, declining to provide more information, citing confidentiality.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealed last month to countries with excess vaccine supplies to donate 10 million doses urgently to the COVAX facility which it runs with the GAVI vaccine alliance. Export restrictions by India left the vaccine-sharing program short of supplies of AstraZeneca’s vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India.

Harris said she had no update on any countries stepping forward, adding: “We are very much looking for more vaccine”.

Chinese scientist says Beijing did share COVID-19 data with investigators

By Gabriel Crossley

BEIJING (Reuters) -A top Chinese medical expert said on Wednesday there was no factual basis to accusations that China did not share data with international researchers appointed by the World Health Organization to look into the origins of COVID-19.

Following the publication of the joint study into the origins of COVID-19 by China and the WHO on Tuesday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China had withheld data from the international investigators.

But Liang Wannian, who was co-leader of the joint study, told reporters that researchers from both sides had access to the same data throughout the investigation and that the assertions about lack of access were not accurate.

“Of course, according to Chinese law, some data cannot be taken away or photographed, but when we were analyzing it together in Wuhan, everyone could see the database, the materials – it was all done together,” he said.

Responding to allegations that the expert panel did not have access to complete datasets and samples, Liang said no scientist ever had perfect information.

He also rejected complaints that the publication of the report had been repeatedly delayed, noting that “every sentence, every conclusion, every piece of data” needed to be verified by both sides before it could be released.

“Throughout we always upheld the principle of ‘quality comes first,'” said Liang, who is the head of a committee of experts on COVID-19 set up by China’s National Health Commission.

The joint study concluded that the most likely origin of COVID-19 was in animals, and probably passed through an intermediary species before it entered humans.

It also said more efforts were needed to see if COVID-19 could be traced back to wildlife farms in both China and southeast Asia.

Liang said China would continue to try to trace the origins of COVID-19, but the Chinese part of the joint research had been completed, and attention should now turn to other countries.

Tracing the origins of COVID-19 couldn’t be achieved overnight, he said.

“There are lots of diseases that have circulated for a long time and we still haven’t found their origins,” he said. “It still needs a lot of time.”

(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley; Writing by David Stanway; Editing by William Maclean and Andrew Heavens)

Data withheld from WHO team probing COVID-19 origins in China: Tedros

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Miller

GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) – Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.

The United States, the European Union and other Western countries immediately called for China to give “full access” to independent experts to all data about the original outbreak in late 2019.

In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.

One of the team’s investigators has already said China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

“In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Tedros said. “I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

The inability of the WHO mission to conclude yet where or how the virus began spreading in people means that tensions will continue over how the pandemic started – and whether China has helped efforts to find out or, as the United States has alleged, hindered them.

“The international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples,” Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Korea, Slovenia, Britain, the United States and the European Union said in a joint statement.

“NOT EXTENSIVE ENOUGH”

Although the team concluded that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory was the least likely hypothesis for the virus that causes COVID-19, Tedros said the issue required further investigation, potentially with more missions to China.

“I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough,” he told member states in remarks released by the WHO. “Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions.”

The WHO team’s leader, Peter Ben Embarek, told a press briefing it was “perfectly possible” the virus had been circulating in November or October 2019 around Wuhan, and so potentially spreading abroad earlier than documented so far.

“We got access to quite a lot of data in many different areas, but of course there were areas where we had difficulties getting down to the raw data and there are many good reasons for that,” he said, citing privacy laws and other restrictions.

Second phase studies were required, Ben Embarek added.

He said the team had felt political pressure, including from outside China, but that he had never been pressed to remove anything from its final report.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian expert on the mission, said he was satisfied there was “no obvious evidence” of a problem at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The European Union called the study “an important first step” but renewed criticisms that the origin study had begun too late, that experts had been kept out of China for too long, and that access to data and early samples had fallen short.

In a statement, Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, called for further study with “timely access to relevant locations and to all relevant human, animal and environmental data available”.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, John Miller and Emma Farge; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Kevin Liffey)

U.S. says hopes WHO report on virus origins is ‘based on science’

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States expects the World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic to require further study, perhaps including a return visit to China, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Marc Cassayre, charge d’affaires at the U.S. mission to the U.N. in Geneva, also voiced hope that the WHO-led mission to the central city of Wuhan in Jan.-Feb. had access to the raw data and to the people required to make an independent assessment.

The lengthy report by the team – composed of international experts and their Chinese counterparts – is expected to be issued this week, the WHO says.

“We are hopeful that it will be based on science and be a real step forward for the world understanding the origins of the virus so we can better prepare for future pandemics,” Cassayre told a news briefing.

U.S. officials expected further work would be needed to identify the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, he said. “That would probably require, as we would presume, further studies of the team, maybe travel to China or further discussions.”

The probe was plagued by delays, concern over access and bickering between Beijing and Washington, which under former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak.

Some team members have said China was reluctant to share vital data that could show the virus was circulating months earlier than first recognized in late 2019.

Ben Embarek, a WHO official leading the mission, said at a press briefing marking the end of the visit that the virus probably originated in bats, although it was not certain how it reached humans. He also effectively ruled out a lab leak.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said that “all hypotheses remain open” and pledged full transparency.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

COVID-19 surging dangerously in Brazil, WHO Americas branch warns

BRASILIA (Reuters) – The coronavirus is surging “dangerously” across Brazil, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional director for the Americas, Carissa Etienne, warned on Tuesday, urging all Brazilians to adopt preventive measures to stop the spread.

“Unfortunately, the dire situation in Brazil is also affecting neighboring countries,” Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said in a briefing.

Cases have risen in Venezuela’s Bolivar and Amazonas states, and in border regions of Peru and Bolivia, she said.

“The COVID-19 virus is not receding, nor is the pandemic starting to go away,” Etienne said.

In the Southern Cone, cases continue to spike in Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, according to PAHO.

In Paraguay, a majority of intensive care unit (ICU) beds are occupied, and the health system is buckling under the pressure. Uruguay has reported more than 1,000 cases per day several times in the past few weeks, an alarming number given the size of the country.

In Central America, cases have declined in Panama, but in Guatemala the rise in hospitalizations is straining ICU bed capacity.

“Vaccines are coming but they are still several months away for most people in our region.” Etienne said.

The COVAX facility led by WHO and the Gavi coalition to provide equitable access to vaccines has delivered 2,161,800 doses to the region so far, including more than 1 million doses to Brazil last weekend.

PAHO expects over 100,000 vaccine doses to be delivered this week to El Salvador, Belize and Suriname, and 1.2 million additional doses have already been procured.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Keep using AstraZeneca vaccine, WHO urges world

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) exhorted the world to keep administering AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots on Friday, adding its endorsement to that of European and British regulators after concerns over blood clotting.

“We urge countries to continue using this important COVID-19 vaccine,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva.

He was speaking after the global health body’s vaccine safety panel said available data about the AstraZeneca shot did not point to any overall increase in clotting conditions.

European and British regulators also said this week that the benefits of AstraZeneca’s shot outweighed the risks, prompting various nations to lift their suspensions.

“The AstraZeneca vaccine is especially important because it accounts for more than 90% of the vaccines being distributed through COVAX,” Tedros added, referring to a WHO-led global vaccine-sharing scheme.

“There is no question. COVID-19 is a deadly disease, and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can prevent it. It’s also important to remember that COVID-19 itself can cause blood clots and low platelets.”

The WHO’s global advisory committee on vaccine safety said in a statement that the AstraZeneca vaccine had a “positive benefit-risk profile” and “tremendous potential” to prevent infections and reduce deaths.

The WHO panel of 12 independent experts, who met virtually on Tuesday and on Thursday, reviewed safety data from Europe, the United Kingdom, India, and WHO’s global database.

“While very rare and unique thromboembolic events in combination with thrombocytopenia, such as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), have also been reported following vaccination with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Europe, it is not certain that they have been caused by vaccination,” it said.

(Reporting by Michael Shields, Emma Farge and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Europe becomes first region to surpass 1 million COVID-19 deaths: Reuters tally

By Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham

(Reuters) – Coronavirus-related deaths in the European region surpassed 1 million on Friday as vaccination efforts attempt to keep up with new variants causing a third wave of infections that could once again overwhelm hospitals.

Since the pandemic began, at least 37,221,978 infections and 1,000,062 deaths were reported in the European region, according to a Reuters tally.

The region, which includes 51 countries, has about 35.5% of all coronavirus deaths and 30.5% of all cases in the world. The region includes Russia, the United Kingdom, the 27 members of the European Union and other countries.

The European region has administered about 12 vaccine shots for every 100 people, behind the United States which has administered about 34 doses per 100 people, according to figures from Our World in Data. Israel leads the world in vaccination efforts with about 110 shots given for every 100 individuals. Some vaccines require two doses.

With the number of EU COVID-19 related deaths above 550,000 and less than a tenth of the population inoculated, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the situation was worsening. “We see the crest of a third wave forming in member states, and we know that we need to accelerate the vaccination rates.”

On Wednesday, the European Union threatened to ban exports of COVID-19 vaccines to Britain to safeguard scarce doses for its own citizens.

The number of infections in Europe have started picking up, with France recently seeing its biggest one-day jump in cases since November. The region is currently reporting a million new cases about every six days.

As Germany plans to lift the lockdown and revive its economy, an expert at the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said on Tuesday that the number of infections is rising exponentially, with the country entering a third wave of the pandemic.

As the European Union looks to meet its summer target of inoculating 70% of adults, at least 13 countries in the bloc have suspended or delayed using AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine after reports of blood coagulation in people who have received the shot.

Countries in eastern Europe, including Russia, remain the worst-affected based on the total number of cases and deaths.

Russia has the highest total number of COVID infections, with over 4.4 million or nearly 12% of all the cases in the region. The country has one of the highest COVID-19 fatality rates in the world on a per capita basis, with about 153 deaths per 100,0000 residents, behind the United States with 164 deaths for every 100,000 people.

While the official death toll in Russia stands at 94,267, at least 221,534 have perished due to the disease, according to a Reuters calculation which includes deaths reported by the country’s Rosstat statistics agency.

Italy became the third country in Europe to exceed more than 100,000 deaths last week. Prime Minister Mario Draghi warned that the situation would worsen again with a jump in hospitalizations.

The World Health Organization appealed to the governments not to pause vaccination campaigns, while the European Medicines Agency has said that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than the number seen in the general population.

(Reporting by Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Thailand sticks with AstraZeneca vaccine after safety scare

By Panarat Thepgumpanat

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand will start using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday after a brief delay over safety concerns, officials said, with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and cabinet members due to be first in line to get shots.

Thailand was on Friday the first country outside of Europe to suspend use of the AstraZeneca shot, on which its mass vaccination campaign is heavily reliant.

Authorities in Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands have halted their use of the vaccine over blood clotting issues, while Indonesia has decided to hold off until a World Health Organization review.

Thailand has much riding on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy and the country will from June be one of its regional manufacturers. Thailand has reserved the first 61 million doses for its population.

Thai Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said many countries had confirmed there were no blood clot issues from the AstraZeneca shot.

“The prime minister had expressed his intention and that he was ready to be given a vaccine to build confidence for the people,” Anutin said in a statement.

He said an expert panel had agreed it should be administered and some senior medical professors would also receive it on Tuesday to demonstrate their confidence in the vaccine.

AstraZeneca said on Sunday it had reviewed data from more than 17 million people vaccinated in the United Kingdom and European Union, which showed “no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia”.

Thailand has imported AstraZeneca vaccines in addition to 200,000 doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac. A further 800,000 CoronaVac doses would arrive on March 20, followed by a million more in April, health officials said.

Anutin on Monday said Thailand hopes to procure 5 million more CoronaVac doses and is negotiating with other vaccine manufacturers that can make deliveries before locally produced AstraZeneca shots are available.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Orathai Sriring; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ed Davies and Nick Macfie)

WHO: Guinea Ebola outbreak likely from human source

GENEVA (Reuters) – Guinea’s current Ebola outbreak is likely to have been sparked by a latent infection in the human population from the last outbreak rather than from the virus jumping the species barrier again, a World Health Organization official said on Friday.

At least 18 cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea’s first resurgence of the virus since the 2013-16 outbreak which was the worst in history and spread through West Africa, killing thousands.

The WHO’s top emergencies official Mike Ryan told a briefing the preliminary finding based on initial genetic sequencing was “remarkable” because of the period of time the virus appeared to have lingered on. However, he urged further research.

“This (outbreak) is unlikely based on genetic sequencing to be linked to a fresh zoonotic reservoir and much more likely to be linked to persistence or latency of infection in a human subject,” he said. “We are not dealing, as far as we understand right now, with a breach of the species barrier,” he added.

A second WHO official at the same briefing said it was too early to draw conclusions on the source of the outbreak.

Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to humanity, can be transmitted to humans from bats or monkeys. It can live on in parts of the body of survivors otherwise in good health such as the eyes, breasts and testicles and sometimes still be transmitted.

Ryan said the preliminary findings underscored the need not to stigmatize Ebola survivors and give them the follow-up and support they require.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Toby Chopra)

WHO tries to quash nervousness about AstraZeneca vaccine

By Emma Farge and Emilio Parodi

GENEVA/MILAN/SOFIA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization squarely endorsed AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine on Friday, as Thailand joined a number of smaller European countries in suspending use of the shot because of sporadic reports of blood clots among recipients.

Bulgaria also joined Denmark, Norway and Iceland, which all stopped using the vaccine on Thursday. Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia stopped using certain batches.

“Until all doubts are dispelled…, we are halting inoculations with this vaccine,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said.

His health minister, Kostadin Angelov, said a 57-year-old woman had died of heart failure 15 hours after receiving an AstraZeneca shot, but urged those already inoculated to stay calm.

“We do not have any official data that proves a causal connection,” he said.

That line was reinforced by the WHO, which is keenly aware that AstraZeneca’s shot is by far the cheapest and most high-volume launched so far, and set to be the mainstay of vaccination programs in much of the developing world.

Spokeswoman Margaret Harris said the vaccine was “excellent”.

“It’s very important to understand that, yes, we should continue to be using the AstraZeneca vaccine,” she told a briefing. “All that we look at is what we always look at: Any safety signal must be investigated.”

The EU regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said on Wednesday that there had been 22 reports of embolisms from blood clots among 3 million people who had received the vaccine – no more than in the general population – but Bulgaria said it wanted to see that guidance in written form.

‘THIS NEEDS TO BE EXPLAINED’

Experts point to the difficulty of putting risks in perspective for a wider public that may be spooked by negative headlines.

In Sicily, where two people died shortly after being vaccinated, the regional health administrator said 7,000 inoculation appointments had been cancelled as a result.

Silvestro Scotti, a family doctor in Naples and head of the Italian Federation of General Practitioners, said he had been bombarded all day with inquiries from people nervous about getting the AstraZeneca shot.

“The crazy thing is that, even if the correlation between the vaccine and blood clots were proved, it would be a rate of 0.007 out of a thousand,” he said.

“To give an example: the birth control pill, which is used widely and doesn’t worry anyone, has a proven risk rate of 0.6 in a thousand. Even in the worst-case scenario, the risk/benefit ratio for this vaccine is extraordinarily favorable. That needs to be explained to people.”

The WHO’s Harris said 268 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from various developers had been administered worldwide without being shown to have caused a single death.

In France, where distrust of vaccination is long-established, only 43% said they trusted the AstraZeneca shot in a Harris Interactive poll conducted on March 11-12, while 55% said they trusted COVID-19 vaccines in general.

Germany has also had to contend with substantial skepticism, to the extent that Health Minister Jens Spahn suggested that the AstraZeneca shot be given to the police force and army, after some health and other frontline workers baulked at receiving it.

However, German authorities’ main concern has been lack of supply, rather than lack of acceptance, as social and economic restrictions to limit transmission take their toll.

One doctor administering vaccinations in Berlin said recipients were now asking far fewer questions about the vaccine than two weeks ago.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Crispian Balmer in Rome, Paul Carrel in Berlin, Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia, Matthias Blamont in Paris; Writing by Kevin Liffey; Editing by Mark Heinrich)