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These are the global coronavirus stories you need to know this week.
As the COVID-19 death toll in the UK surpassed the 50,000 milestone and US President-elect Joe Biden announced a coronavirus task force, COVID-19 continued to have an impact. Worldwide.
Here are some highlights from the global editions of Medscape, Univadis, and MediQuality.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine candidate has been found to be 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior infection, results of an interim analysis of a phase 3 study demonstrated. The results have not been peer reviewed.
This vaccine must be stored at -70 ° C, which could cause logistical problems, especially in warmer countries.
Russia The health ministry responded to Pfizer’s announcement saying that its Sputnik V vaccine is also more than 90% effective.
Morocco is to become the first country in the world to launch a national vaccination campaign. King Mohammed VI said the vaccination campaign should cover everyone over 18 by the end of March.
Brazilian Health authorities suspended a clinical trial of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine due to a serious adverse event.
Victory, AustraliaOnce a major COVID-19 hotspot, it has registered no new cases or deaths for the 12th day in a row. CSL Limited, an Australian biotechnology company, began production of 30 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca earlier this week.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health has announced that as of December 1, any business or individual in Singapore who needs a PCR test will be able to obtain one from approved providers. Breathonix, a spin-off company from the National University of Singapore, said in a press release that its COVID-19 60-second breath test was able to achieve at least 90% accuracy in a pilot clinical trial.
In Belgium, as hospital admissions for COVID-19 continue to slowly decline, the pressure on intensive care remains and the number of deaths continues to rise sharply. The country remains in partial blockade until mid-December. The decision on whether or not the country will order the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine (which is already being mass-produced in Belgium) will likely be made next week. Trials with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will resume on Thursday.
In Spain, deaths have reached their highest rate in the second wave, but the incidence of new cases appears to stabilize. The health minister estimates that as of 2021, 10 million people could receive the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine. An analysis of the complete SARS-CoV-2 genome carried out by Spanish scientists has identified five large clades worldwide and has revealed 62 independent introductions of the virus in the country.
Brazil reported 5,722,878 diagnoses and 163,078 deaths from coronavirus as of 1 p.m. Wednesday. The moving average of new cases is down 21% and deaths are down 24% in the last 7 days compared to 2 weeks ago. A hacker attack caused problems for several states that wanted to access the data platform of the Ministry of Health to update information on COVID-19. In a statement, the ministry said that “since late Tuesday afternoon, the platform has been stable and [we are] constantly monitoring their performance. “
In Portugal, a 15-day state of emergency was announced on Monday. Among the measures to control the pandemic, the Council of Ministers prohibited the use of public roads between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. from Monday to Friday and from 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The measure applies exclusively to 121 municipalities with a high risk of transmission of COVID-19. Travel exceptions include professional and health reasons, helping vulnerable people, and walking dogs. The country registered a total of 192,172 cases and 3103 deaths as of November 11.
In Italy, the Government announced new restrictive measures to contain the pandemic and an expansion of the red zones where there is a ‘light blockade’. According to official data from the Ministry of Health, there are currently more than one million cases of COVID-19. An agreement with Pfizer was announced to administer 3.4 million doses of the new vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.
A study by a collaborative group of Italian cardiologists quantified the incidence of pulmonary embolism (PE) in 689 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in 13 Italian hospitals, 15.8% invasively ventilated and 43.6% non-invasively ventilated . 52 (7.5%) had PE during 15 (9-24) days of follow-up. The relationship between D-dimer concentrations and the incidence of PE was linear in the study published in Clinical research in cardiology.
In Germany, the Society for Virology said measures currently in place to reduce the number of new infections are necessary and appropriate. In a statement he criticized the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) for calling for softer measures and hinting that there was a medical and scientific consensus to do so.
A prospective study of COVID-19 ICU patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in France, Belgium Y Switzerland confirmed that these patients faced more severe ARDS and much longer hospital stays than non-COVID-19 patients with ARDS. The study was published in Intensive care medicine.
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