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The Delta variant is more transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu and smallpox, and it is as contagious as chickenpox, according to the document, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
The immediate next step for the agency is to “acknowledge the war has changed,” the document said. Its contents were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday evening.
President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday a requirement that all federal employees and contractors be vaccinated against Covid-19, or be required to submit to regular testing and mitigation requirements, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
(27.07.2021)
Unvaccinated Americans were the talking point of the day on Monday with a slew of figures slamming those who have chosen not to take the coronavirus jabs, assigning blame to them for America ‘going backwards’, likening them to murderers, and suggesting that they are to blame for more deadly variants of the virus emerging.
(23.07.2021)
The US government is buying an additional 200m doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, expanding its total order to 500m, as officials prepare for the next phase of vaccinations, including children under 12 and potential booster shots.
Doses of the messenger RNA shots — to be delivered between October and April next year — will either be the current formulation or one that has been adapted to coronavirus variants
„ery happy today to have the opportunity to pursue that conversation, to talk about the United States‘ enduring commitment to Israel’s security and to talk about some of the needs that Israel has in that regard,“ Blinken said.
The officials discussed the Iran nuclear threat, as well as the recent 11-day conflagration between Israel and the Gaza Strip-based terrorists of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
The pro-Palestinian stance of these lawmakers reached unprecedented levels on Wednesday after Reps. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Mark Pocan introduced a resolution attempting to block a $735 million arms sale to Israel — the first-ever attempt by sitting members of Congress to block such a sale.
The Biden administration notified Congress on May 5 that it approved selling Israel $735 million in weapons, mostly Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions that can turn so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided missiles.
Like Trump, both Bibi and Hamas have kept power by inspiring and riding waves of hostility to “the other.” They turn to this tactic anytime they are in political trouble. Indeed, they each have been the other’s most valuable partner in that tactic ever since Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996 — on the back of a wave of Hamas suicide bombings.
No, Hamas and Bibi don’t talk. They don’t need to. They each understand what the other needs to stay in power and consciously or unconsciously behave in ways to ensure that they deliver it.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has earlier this month approved the sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
According to the outlet, US lawmakers were notified of the move on May 5, well before the latest military escalation between Israel and Gaza Strip-based terrorist groups.
( December 3, 2020 )
“Behind me is one of the most advanced war machines in the world, which poses a significant leap forward in the Israeli military’s ability to ensure our strength at sea and in naval operations,” said the military’s chief, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi.
Israel agreed to buy the vessels in a 2015 deal valued at roughly €430 million (U.S. $480 million at the time), with the German government covering about one-quarter of the cost.
Several Israeli businessmen, including confidants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former commander of the Navy, are suspects in a graft scandal connected to the purchase of the warships and submarines from German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.
The European Union cemented its support for Pfizer-BioNTech and its novel COVID-19 vaccine technology Saturday by agreeing to a massive contract extension for a potential 1.8 billion doses through 2023.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said her office has approved a contract for a guaranteed 900 million doses with the same amount of doses as a future option.
(23.04.2021)
As Bourla said in an interview with Channel 12 News last month, Bourla was impressed with Netanyahu’s “obsessiveness” with purchasing the vaccines. The Yisrael HaYom report added that Bourla was also impressed by Netanyahu’s insistence on having the lawyers from both sides joining in on the conversations in order to prevent any legal deterrents to the deal.
Read more on „Deutsche Welle“
And government sources have told the paper they hope to roughly double the UK’s original order of 40 million jabs.
If negotiations are successful, the extra stock could be used for those in their twenties, who are to be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab amid blood clot fears.
The European Union has approached India in a bid to buy 10million doses of the AstraZeneca jab from its Serum Institute, as the bloc desperately scrambles to procure more vaccine supplies.
Britain has already blamed India’s export ban for delaying the shipment of five million doses to the UK and restricting the country’s vaccine drive to mainly administering second doses to the over-50s in April.
Levy, the ministry’s director general, points to Europe’s potential ban on exporting the vaccine beyond the continent, particularly to countries such as Israel, where vaccination levels are high. If Israel signs the new contracts, it might be protected against such export bans. The ministry is also hastening Israel to sign contracts prior to the completion of clinical trials of the vaccine on children, before stiff international competition sets in.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson has sent an envoy to India to secure millions of doses of the AstraZeneca (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine.
Lord Eddie Lister, the PM’s Conservative peer, and international adviser David Quarrey, met with India’s foreign secretary Harsh Shringla in New Delhi on Monday.
Britain is set to speed up its “world-leading” vaccine roll-out in coming months after the EU stopped short of imposing a ban on exports of jabs across the Channel, a Cabinet minister said today.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick stressed that more vaccination supplies were due to arrive in the UK during the spring and summer.
“The UK is proud to have vaccinated many people with the first dose, but they will have a problem with the second dose,” Le Drian said. “And we are fully vaccinated with two doses, not one. Today we have the same number of fully vaccinated people in France and the United Kingdom.
Britain negotiated a better contract to secure vaccine supplies with AstraZeneca that trumps the EU’s agreement with the company, the health secretary has said.
EU leaders will today discuss European Commission proposals for export bans if there are new supply shortages this spring amid a dispute over who gets a stock of four million doses made by AstraZeneca’s Dutch factory.
The PM is appealing to other leaders in a bid to resolve the crisis without a clash, and he spoke with continental heavyweights Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron last night to try and persuade them to soften their stance. He has also sent Lord Lister, a government ally, to India to ease tensions over the delay to a batch of five million UK-bound doses of the same vaccine.
(31.01.2021)
First, the parties.
The agreement is between the European Commission, acting on behalf of European Union member states, and AstraZeneca AB, incorporated in Sweden.
That this is the AstraZeneca entity that is party to the agreement may be significant, for (all other things being equal) only that entity will be bound by obligations on AstraZeneca in the agreement – and not any other AstraZeneca entity.
Ms von der Leyen said Brussels had the right to ban the export of vaccines to the UK. But according to a UK Government official, such a move would be illegal.
The source told the Daily Mail: “The reality is our contract with AstraZeneca is rock-solid and better than the EU’s.
“And we’re only getting what we helped to develop and paid for.”
(19.03.2021)
The United Kingdom (UK) will have to slow its Covid-19 vaccine rollout in April due to a supply crunch caused by a delay in a shipment of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines from the Serum Institute of India.
The grotesque behaviour of EU governments and leaders over the Oxford vaccine has gone beyond all limits of reason and civilised action.
First, they attacked its usefulness. Then they cast doubts on its safety. Now they seek to grab hold of supplies, and so slow down its distribution in one of the few countries that has welcomed and used it widely and effectively.
Von der Leyen said Anglo-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca had delivered only 30 percent of the 90 million vaccine doses it had promised for the first quarter of the year.
The company has blamed production delays at its EU plants, but European officials are furious that AstraZeneca has been able to deliver its United Kingdom contract while falling short on the continent.
(12.03.2021)
But the 180 million doses expected in the second quarter are now also in jeopardy, since half of these doses were planned to be sourced from the global supply chain.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) has told Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Morocco that further supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will be delayed because of surging demand at home and work on capacity expansion, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Saudi Arabia said some of the world’s most protected oil infrastructure came under missile and drone attack in an escalation of regional hostilities that sent crude prices surging.
The attacks on Sunday were intercepted, Saudi Arabia said, and oil output appeared to be unaffected.
The party believed that the COVID vaccination rollout would highlight all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advantages: an international leader with vision, connections and strategy who resolved the coronavirus crisis before any other country. Last week Netanyahu tried a new message – only he can bring in another 36 million vaccine doses and establish a vaccine factory here. But according to Likud polling, this message did not sink in; it has raised hackles and is going to be shelved.
(09.02.2021)
It expects to have a vaccine designed to address the variant discovered in South Africa ready by autumn.
(14.02.2021)
The Anglo-Swedish company, which makes a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, said it is working with the university’s scientists to adapt the shot to combat new variants.
(12.02.2021)
SAGE member Professor John Edmunds painted a darker picture and suggested the measures could last even longer.
He told ITV’s Peston face masks could be required „probably forever“ if COVID-19 becomes endemic in the UK.
Dr Dix added: ‚I think 40 days would be a real stretch but we would aim for something as good as that.
‚But certainly within 60 days and then, after that, we would start the manufacturing.‘
Manufacturing vaccines takes different amounts of time depending on the type of jab.
„We continue to call for Covid-19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries,“ he said.
A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.
„Europe is no more, no less than the world leader in vaccine production today. More than 75 per cent of vaccines worldwide are produced in Europe. Nevertheless, there is a crucial lack of supply,“ he said, adding the UK, Canada, Israel and the US are not facing the same shortages.
(10.02.2021)
AstraZeneca subcontracted the plant — previously owned by Novasep — to produce the drug substance of its vaccine. Volanti would not say how many doses the plant was contracted to provide. He said the plant sends its drug substance to an Italian company to be put into vials and packaged for distribution.
AstraZeneca declined to comment on Thermo Fisher’s remarks, according to Reuters.
“Unfortunately, viruses mutate. Sometimes this is by accident. But often the reason is that the virus wants to become more adept to infect the host.”
This, Madhi explained, was what had happened with the South African variant as well as another variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom.
Following the renewed request from the European Commission on 27 January 2021, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has agreed to publish the redacted contract signed between the two parties on 27 August 2020.
The Commission welcomes the company’s commitment towards more transparency in its participation in the rollout of the EU Vaccines Strategy.
Prof Andy Pollard, of the University of Oxford, said the lack of data is understandable. “In our trials, the older adults were recruited later and, because they were recruited later there has been less time for cases to occur, and, older adults are known to be more cautious in the pandemic, meaning the ‘attack rate’ is lower,” he said.
AstraZeneca has stressed that older adults were recruited later because the team wanted to be sure the vaccine was safe before administering it to older age groups.
Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of siding with the EU in its battle with the UK over vaccine doses, with the Scottish First Minister pledging to publish confidential vaccine data despite warnings that the information could jeopardise the UK’s supply.
Ms Sturgeon promised to publish the data – which reveals how many vaccine doses her nation expects each week – to counter claims that she is failing to rollout the vaccine in Scotland at speed.
Despite the PM warning that the information must be confidential to protect the rollout, Ms Sturgeon told Holyrood she will release it from next week ‚regardless of what they say‘.
The timing of Ms Sturgeon’s intervention was particularly provocative given that it came as Mr Johnson was on an official visit to Scotland to make the case for the Union.
The Novasep’s factory in the town of Seneffe is part of the European production chain for the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has not been granted approval yet for general use in the European Union, but the bloc’s medicines regulator EMA is poised to authorise it on Friday.
The German panel, STIKO did not detail the data from clinical trials on the vaccine on older people, but two prominent German media outlets had reported that the efficacy on above-65s was below 10 per cent.
The meeting comes as a row escalates over the supply of its coronavirus vaccine. #sabcnews
Embarrassingly for the bloc, it appears that Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy had originally been looking to do a deal with AstraZeneca in May alongside the UK – but were blocked by the EU, which insisted it take over negotiations.
According to ITV’s Robert Peston: ‚The extra talks with the European Commission led to no material changes to the contract, but wasted time on making arrangements to make the vaccine with partner sites.‘
(21.01.2021)
SII has licensed the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. Many low- and middle-income countries, from Bangladesh to Brazil, are depending on SII delivering the vaccine, known as COVISHIELD in India, to fight the COVID-19 epidemic.
Under this program, 250,000 front line workers will be vaccinated – Lalith Weeratunga
AstraZeneca says it has not pulled out of talks with the EU on vaccine deliveries, plans meeting later Wednesday.
The cancellation follows an explosive interview with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot on Tuesday night, in which he insisted the company didn’t have a contractual obligation but rather a „best effort“ to supply the EU with its vaccine.
Instead of the meeting, the company will respond in writing to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides‘ demand for more information, the Commission official said. AstraZeneca did not immediately confirm this plan.
The government is seeking 100 million doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and 100 million from Moderna, an order that would be made available over the summer. They would be in addition to the 400 million combined doses the companies had already committed to provide the U.S., Biden said. He said he expects to be able to confirm the purchase soon.
Pfizer will supply the US with 200 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine two months sooner than expected, according to the firm’s chief executive.
The reports emerged in Handelsblatt, a respected financial daily, and the mass-circulation Bild, quoting sources within Germany’s governing coalition.
EXCLUSIVE-ASTRAZENECA HAS PROPOSED TO THE EU TO BRING FORWARD START OF SUPPLIES OF ITS COVID-19 VACCINE TO FEB 7 FROM FEB 15 – EU SOURCES
The European Commission has warned it will impose controls on vaccines that could affect the UK’s supply of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which is shipped from its manufacturing base in Belgium.
But vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News on Tuesday: “I’m confident that the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered.
EU countries learnt late last week that deliveries of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, which is expected to be approved on Friday, would be some 60% lower in the first quarter than initially indicated.
There have also been reduced deliveries of a vaccine jointly produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Another Westminster official said: “The efficacy claims circulating in the German media are unsubstantiated and incorrect.”
Speaking to Politico, a third added: “After this, support for Brexit will be at about 90 percent.”
The claims in the German media were made on the same day a row broke out between the European Union and AstraZeneca over supplies of the vaccine to the continent.
(15.06.2020)
Novasep brings to AstraZeneca more than 20 years of expertise in viral vector production. Novasep’s investment strategy in the large-scale production of biopharmaceutical products for immunotherapy and gene therapy enables Novasep to support the alliance for the production of the vaccine active substance in Europe.
The production operations will be carried out at Novasep’s Belgian site in Seneffe. Furthermore, the biopharmaceutical ecosystem in the region allows Novasep to rapidly mobilize the additional human resources needed to achieve this project.
(December 2020)
Most of the UK’s supply of the vaccine is being produced at Pfizer’s facilities in Puurs, Belgium.
Some does are also being made at BioNTech’s sites in Germany.
Meanwhile, there is another row raging after two German newspapers claimed the EU’s regulator could refuse to give the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab full approval, with officials anonymously briefing its efficacy for pensioners was just eight per cent.
However, the claim was branded ‚absolutely incorrect‘ and ‚unsubstantiated‘ by the pharmaceutical company – and No10 sources told MailOnline it was ‚rubbish‘. One Whitehall source told Playbook it was the kind of tactics ‚you expect from the Russians‘.
Good evening.
You know that AstraZeneca’s vaccine is currently in the final stages of the approval process with the European Medicines Agency.
If all requirements are met, the European Medicines Agency could recommend market authorisation by the end of this week.
But there is a problem on the supply side.
Last Friday, the company AstraZeneca surprisingly informed the Commission and the European Union Member States that it intends to supply considerably fewer doses in the coming weeks than agreed and announced.
This new schedule is not acceptable to the European Union.
n a sign of the EU’s frustration – after Pfizer also announced a temporary slowdown in vaccine supplies earlier in January – EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides proposed forcing drug makers to register in advance their Covid-19 vaccine exports, so the bloc can keep track of what they are doing.
(21.01.2021)
Brazil is set to collect two million doses of Serum Institute’s (SII) Covishield vaccine, two weeks after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for their “urgent” clearance, sources confirmed to The Hindu.
(23.01.2021)
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Friday that the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has granted approval to the SII, which is producing the vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, to supply the drug to the country.
The @EU_Commission will continue to insist with @AstraZeneca on measures to increase predictability and stability of deliveries, and acceleration of the distribution of doses/3.
The company was expected to deliver around 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, an EU official told the agency.
However, it now expects that to be cut to 31 million doses due to „production problems“ at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep.
After the surprise discovery of an extra dose in every vial, Pfizer executives successfully lobbied the F.D.A. to change the vaccine’s formal authorization language. The company charges by the dose.
Back in March, Oxford University had “a limited manufacturing and supply capacity so they needed a partner,” Srinivasan said. “We decided to immediately offer our capacity in terms of the global reach. But that was only the beginning. Then we had to establish various alliances whether public partnerships that have been governments, or with for profit organizations or CMOs [some of which can be found here, here, and here], or not for profit organizations such as The Gates Alliance, GAVI, CEPI, and other organizations.”
Priti Patel today blamed AstraZeneca and Pfizer for an alarming slowdown in the UK’s vaccine rollout – amid warnings the target of giving jabs to the 14million most vulnerable people by mid-February is now ‚very tight‘.
The Home Secretary pointed the finger at the firms after the daily rate fell for a third consecutive day, saying ‚upgrades‘ at factories and ‚reconfiguring‘ of supply chains were causing delays.
India on Jan. 4 approved emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, and another by Indian company Bharat Biotech. Cargo planes flew 16.5 million shots to different Indian cities last week.
(29.10.2020)
Apart from developing its own vaccine, Kangtai also has a deal to make and supply mainland China with the vaccine candidate developed by AstraZeneca and researchers at the University of Oxford.
(Dec. 7, 2020)
Kangtai will be the exclusive manufacturer in mainland China for the vaccine made by AstraZeneca, and the companies could work together on deals for other countries. Kangtai is also in early trials for its own candidate.
(08.01.2021)
A source with knowledge of the situation said the active
ingredient is ready to be shipped to Brazil, but is still
waiting for an export license from China, where it is produced.
(01.01.2021)
„At the moment it doesn’t look good – a hole is appearing because there’s a lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our own vaccine,“ BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told news weekly Spiegel.
(19.12.2020)
UNITED NATIONS: Global vaccine partnership COVAX has lined up almost two billion doses of existing and candidate COVID-19 vaccines for use worldwide, including 200 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine through an agreement between the Vaccine Alliance Gavi, the Serum Institute of India and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
(30.12.2020)
The Wrexham plant is able to produce around 300 million doses of the vaccine each year, and has been producing 150,000 phials a day for months in readiness to roll out the vaccine across the UK.
The CP Pharmaceuticals lab will carry out the „fill and finish“ stage of the manufacturing process. This involves dispensing the vaccine into vials ready for it to be sent out across the country.
The 18-month agreement with parent company Wockhardt was announced back in August.
An expert panel on Covid-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Friday granted emergency use authorisation for the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine Covishield, being manufactured by Serum Institute of India, sources said on Friday.
„At the moment it doesn’t look good – a hole is appearing because there’s a lack of other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our own vaccine,“ BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told news weekly Spiegel.
Everyone can see what a serious emergency this is. We have to act. Bin the bureaucracy, and get this miracle vaccine to work right now.
The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine – enough for the entire population
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that it will take CSL about 50 days to completely process the vaccine. According to the newspaper, the company has separate contracts with AstraZeneca and the Australian government for the production of the vaccine.
The AstraZeneca vaccine still needs to be approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Phase three clinical trials of the vaccine are expected to wrap up by the end of this year.
Biotechnology giant CSL announced they would start producing the AstraZeneca AZD1222 coronavirus vaccine at its factory in Melbourne this week.
About 30million doses will be manufactured as part of a first-of-its-kind agreement with the Australian government, with the company hoping to release them in the first half of 2021 pending clinical trials and approval.
The jab, which was produced at the University of Oxford, is seen as the leading candidate across the globe and is in final-stage trials.
The UAE official added that Israel, the United States and the Emiratis agreed to bolster the military capabilities of the Gulf kingdom as an integral part of the peace deal.
Israel procured its first two F-35 jets in 2016 and has reportedly been using the aircraft in some of the strikes in Syria, becoming the first nation to deploy the jets in combat.
As of today, the Jewish state is also the only Middle East nation to have the jet in its air force, with Turkey booted out of the F-35 program in 2019.
In an interview with Sky News Arabia, the leading television channel in the UAE, Netanyahu was asked how the normalization deal between the UAE and Israel will serve regional peace. He answered: „Vastly. The deal connects the UAE with Israel; both of them are advanced democracies and their societies are advanced.“ Netanyahu uploaded a video of the interview to his Twitter account, and deleted it shortly after.
Why it matters: U.S. law requires the administration to consult with Israel before selling arms to any Arab country to ensure Israel can maintain its qualitative military edge. It must also report to Congress on the matter.
This morning, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that the normalization deal included a secret clause, approved by Netanyahu, about F-35 sales to the UAE.
(20.06.2019)
The sources stressed that the Saudi intelligence services have sought to obtain advanced spyware in order to trace the Kingdom’s citizens – both in the country and abroad – amidst increasing criticism of the Saudi royal family.
Saudi Arabia therefore reached out to the Israeli market and struck a deal worth $300m with representatives of Israeli firms, the sources said, adding that both sides met and reached the deal in UK capital London.
It marks the first time for South Korea to provide rice to North Korea since 2010, when it sent 5,000 tons to support its efforts to recover from flood damage.
– In a state visit this week, the Chinese president is expected to provide massive aid to the North, with reports anticipating at least 100,000 tonnes of food
– International food organisations say 10 million people, or 40 per cent of North Korea’s population, are in urgent need of sustenance