SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

● Sci­en­tists at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty say the im­proved vac­cine would pro­vide pro­tec­tion against new and emerg­ing vari­ants ●

(AL JAZEERA) — As­traZeneca is work­ing with Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty to de­vel­op a bet­ter coro­n­avirus vac­cine that will ex­clu­sive­ly tar­get the omi­cron vari­ant, the com­pa­ny has an­nounced.

Sci­en­tists at the uni­ver­si­ty ar­gue that the im­proved vac­cine would al­so pro­vide pro­tec­tion against new and emerg­ing vari­ants in the fu­ture, as well as re­spond more quick­ly to them.

“To­geth­er with Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, we have tak­en pre­lim­i­nary steps in pro­duc­ing an omi­cron vari­ant vac­cine, in case it is need­ed, and will be in­formed by emerg­ing da­ta,” said the British-Swedish phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in a state­ment pro­vid­ed to lo­cal me­dia.

Sandy Dou­glas, head of a re­search group at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, told The Fi­nan­cial Times that up­dat­ed vac­cines are a must when deal­ing with lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges posed by the rapid spread of vari­ants such as omi­cron, and that they could help al­le­vi­ate pres­sures on health­care ser­vices and sys­tems.

“Ade­n­ovirus-based vac­cines (such as made by Ox­ford/As­traZeneca’s) could in prin­ci­ple be used to re­spond to any new vari­ant more rapid­ly than some may pre­vi­ous­ly have re­alised,” she said.

In oth­er COVID-19 news around the world:

South Africa's study sug­gests Omi­cron less se­vere than oth­er vari­ants

Sandile Cele, a researcher at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, works on the Omicron variant [File: Jerome Delay/AP Photo]

A new South African study, along with da­ta on hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions and deaths in the coun­try’s fourth wave of COVID in­fec­tions, sug­gest that the risk of se­vere dis­ease is low­er with Omi­cron than with pre­vi­ous vari­ants, a top sci­en­tist has said.

“Com­pelling­ly, to­geth­er our da­ta re­al­ly sug­gest a pos­i­tive sto­ry of a re­duced sever­i­ty of Omi­cron com­pared to oth­er vari­ants,” said Pro­fes­sor Cheryl Co­hen of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NICD), one of the au­thors of the new study, dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on Tues­day.

South Africa’s no­tice­able drop in new COVID-19 cas­es in re­cent days may sig­nal that the coun­try’s dra­mat­ic Omi­cron-dri­ven surge has passed its peak, med­ical ex­perts said ear­li­er.

A boy receives a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 at Discovery vaccination site in Sandton, Johannesburg, on December 15, 2021. [Luca Sola/AFP]

Af­ter hit­ting a high of near­ly 27,000 new cas­es na­tion­wide last Thurs­day, the num­bers dropped to about 15,424 on Tues­day. In Gaut­eng province—South Africa’s most pop­u­lous with 16 mil­lion peo­ple, in­clud­ing the largest city, Jo­han­nes­burg, and the cap­i­tal, Pre­to­ria—the de­crease start­ed ear­li­er and has con­tin­ued.

“The drop in new cas­es na­tion­al­ly com­bined with the sus­tained drop in new cas­es seen here in Gaut­eng province, which for weeks has been the cen­ter of this wave, in­di­cates that we are past the peak,” Mar­ta Nunes, se­nior re­searcher at the Vac­cines and In­fec­tious Dis­eases An­a­lyt­ics de­part­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wit­wa­ter­srand, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

Chi­na or­ders 13 mil­lion Xi’an res­i­dents to stay home over COVID out­break

The north­ern Chi­nese city of Xi’an on Wednes­day or­dered all 13 mil­lion res­i­dents to stay home, in a strict lock­down as con­cern grows over a fresh out­break of COVID-19.

With Bei­jing prepar­ing to host the 2022 Win­ter Olympics in Feb­ru­ary, Chi­na is on high alert as it fights lo­cal out­breaks in sev­er­al cities.

All house­holds may on­ly “send one house­hold mem­ber out­side once every two days to pur­chase ne­ces­si­ties,” with all oth­ers or­dered to re­main in­doors ex­cept for emer­gen­cies, the city gov­ern­ment said in a state­ment on its of­fi­cial Wei­bo so­cial me­dia ac­count.

Philip­pines halves COVID-19 boost­er wait time to three months

People queue at a vaccination centre amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in San Juan City, Metro Manila, Philippines, November 29, 2021. [Peter Blaza/Reuters]

The Philip­pines has halved to three months the wait­ing time for a boost­er dose of COVID-19 vac­cine in its bat­tle to rein in the more in­fec­tious Omi­cron vari­ant of coro­n­avirus, which has forced a glob­al tight­en­ing of curbs.

From Wednes­day, adults can re­ceive a boost­er dose at least three months af­ter tak­ing the sec­ond com­ple­ment of a two-dose vac­cine, ver­sus six months ear­li­er, act­ing pres­i­den­tial spokesper­son Kar­lo No­grales said.

Sin­gle-dose vac­cine re­cip­i­ents are el­i­gi­ble for a boost­er af­ter two months, he told a reg­u­lar news con­fer­ence.

Poland re­ports high­est num­ber of COVID-re­lat­ed deaths in fourth wave

Poland re­port­ed 775 COVID-re­lat­ed deaths on Fri­day, the high­est dai­ly num­ber in the fourth wave of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the da­ta from the health min­istry showed, with to­tal num­ber of in­fec­tions since the start of the pan­dem­ic cross­ing 4 mil­lion.

Poland has been deal­ing with per­sis­tent­ly high dai­ly case num­bers in a fourth wave that has forced au­thor­i­ties to tight­en re­stric­tions.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, (deaths) dom­i­nate among the el­der­ly and the un­vac­ci­nat­ed… we do not get vac­ci­nat­ed and we go to hos­pi­tals too late,” min­istry’s spokesman Wo­j­ciech An­drusiewicz told re­porters.

A man receives a vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the University Hospital in Wroclaw, Poland, January 25, 2021. [File: Tomasz Pietrzyk/Agencja Gazeta via Reuters]

Is­rael to of­fer fourth COVID-19 vac­cine dose in bid to out­pace Omi­cron

Is­rael has an­nounced it will of­fer a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vac­cine to health work­ers and peo­ple old­er than 60, amid con­cern about the spread of the Omi­cron vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus.

A health min­istry ex­pert pan­el rec­om­mend­ed the fourth shot late on Tues­day, a de­ci­sion that was swift­ly wel­comed by Prime Min­is­ter Naf­tali Ben­nett as “great news that will help us over­come the Omi­cron wave that is spread­ing around the world”.

Japan con­firms first known lo­cal omi­cron trans­mis­sions

Japan con­firmed its first known lo­cal trans­mis­sions of the new omi­cron vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus in Os­a­ka on Wednes­day, a sign it is al­ready mak­ing its way in the coun­try.

The fam­i­ly of three in Os­a­ka had no record of trav­el­ing over­seas and their in­fec­tions could not be traced, Os­a­ka Gov­er­nor Hi­ro­fu­mi Yoshimu­ra said.

The three are the first known cas­es of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion of the high­ly in­fec­tious omi­cron vari­ant in Japan, Yoshimu­ra said. “I be­lieve they on­ly hap­pened to be de­tect­ed and we must take steps on the as­sump­tion that there al­ready are oth­er cas­es of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion,” he said.

France pre­dicts ma­jor COVID surge soon

France could soon have around 100,000 new COVID-19 cas­es per day, health min­is­ter Olivi­er Ve­r­an has warned, as the new Omi­cron coro­n­avirus vari­ant con­tin­ues to spread rapid­ly. The Omi­cron vari­ant will be the dom­i­nant strain of the coro­n­avirus in France by ear­ly Jan­u­ary, he said.

Mean­while, Sin­ga­pore said it will freeze all new tick­et sales for flights and bus­es un­der its quar­an­tine-free trav­el scheme for four weeks from Thurs­day. Cit­ing the risk of the new Omi­cron coro­n­avirus vari­ant, the gov­ern­ment said the move would buy time to strength­en its de­fences against COVID-19.

And Aus­tralia has ruled out a Christ­mas lock­down and re­newed its vac­ci­na­tion push, as surg­ing Omi­cron cas­es caused au­thor­i­ties to im­pose new curbs and ex­pe­dite COVID-19 boost­er shots.