Oct 3rd, 2022 - (Reuters) - Moderna Inc has refused to hand over to China the core intellectual property behind the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, leading to a collapse in negotiations on its sale there, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company turned down China’s request to hand over the recipe for its mRN...

Oct 3rd, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. COVID-19 causes DNA damage to the heart, affecting the body in a completely different way than the flu does, according to a recent study published in Immunology. The study looked at the hearts of patients who died from COVID-19, the flu, and other causes. The findings could provide clues about w...

Sep 30th, 2022 - JAKARTA/BEIJING (Reuters) - Indonesia said it has granted emergency use approval to an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developed by a Chinese company, becoming the first country, ahead of even China, to do so. Indonesia's food and drugs agency (BPOM) greenlighted the use of Walvax Biotechnology Co Ltd's mRNA vaccine, which has been in development for more than two years and targets the original strain of...

Sep 30th, 2022 - SHANGHAI (Reuters) — For most of China's 1.4 billion people, regular COVID-19 tests have become a way of life. Siyuan Zhuji is trying to turn them into a work of art. Since March, the 33-year-old multi-disciplinary artist from Jiangsu province has been filming his own nucleic acid tests with a small camera in his mouth. His video clips show teeth and tongue and an approaching cotton bud. In som...

Sep 30th, 2022 - (Reuters) — Around 3.2 million people in the United States received updated COVID-19 booster shots over the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The CDC said a total of 7.6 million Americans had received the shot as of Sept. 28, the first four weeks the booster has been available. This is up from the 4.4. million people who received the shot as of Sept. 21...

Sep 30th, 2022 - ROME (Reuters) -Italians will no longer have to wear face masks on public transport, the health ministry said late on Thursday, in the latest easing of rules against the coronavirus pandemic. The ministry said a decree requiring mask wearing on trains, buses and ferries, expiring on Friday, would not be renewed. The obligation was extended, however, for hospitals and care homes. Italy is one of...

Sep 30th, 2022 - HONG KONG (Reuters) - The Hong Kong government said on Friday it aims to ease some coronavirus curbs in an orderly way as pandemic trends in the Asia financial hub were continuing to stabilize. From Oct. 6, some social distancing measures will be relaxed including raising the maximum number of persons per table in restaurants to 12 from eight, while banquets will be allowed to have up to 240 pe...

Sep 29th, 2022 - The Indovac vaccine has been developed by Indonesia's state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma and the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine. Penny Lukito, the head of BPOM, was cited by news portal CNN Indonesia as saying the approval was "given as a primary vaccine for adults." Penny and a Bio Farma spokesperson did not immediately respond ...

Sep 29th, 2022 - TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan will end its mandatory COVID-19 quarantine for arrivals from Oct. 13 and welcome tourists back, the government said on Thursday, completing a major step on its plan to re-open to the outside world. Taiwan had kept some of its entry and quarantine rules in place as large parts of the rest of Asia relaxed or lifted them completely, although in June it cut the number of da...

Sep 29th, 2022 - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Drugmaker Merck & Co said on Wednesday that it agreed to allow China's Sinopharm to distribute and import its COVID-19 antiviral molnupiravir in China if the drug is approved for use there. The drugmaker said in a statement that it reached a cooperation framework agreement with Sinopharm that grants the Chinese company distribution and exclusive import rights of the medicin...

Sep 28th, 2022 - (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it will now review only a small number of emergency use authorization requests for COVID tests that are likely to have a significant benefit to public health, including fulfilling an unmet need. The agency is revising its COVID-19 test policy in light of the current manufacturing status and number of cases, it said, adding compan...

Sep 28th, 2022 - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's population level immunity to COVID-19 has reached about 90% in major population areas after a recent Omicron wave, though that level of protection is likely to diminish in a matter of months, according to a study published on Tuesday. That level of so-called "herd immunity" reflects partial protection imparted from both natural infection and vaccination, according to t...

Sep 28th, 2022 - TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Shionogi & Co Ltd said on Wednesday its oral treatment for COVID-19 demonstrated a significant reduction in symptoms compared with a placebo in a Phase III trial in Asia. The drug, a protease inhibitor known as ensitrelvir, met its primary endpoint in a trial conducted among predominantly vaccinated patients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, the company said in a...

Sep 27th, 2022 - SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported 968 new COVID-19 infections on Sept. 26, of which 245 were symptomatic and 723 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday. That compares with 999 new cases a day earlier – 295 symptomatic and 704 asymptomatic infections, which China counts separately. There were no new deaths, same as a day earlier, keeping the nation's fatalities at 5,...

Sep 27th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. STOCKHOLM, Sweden — It remains inconclusive whether SARS-CoV-2 infection predisposes children and adolescents to a higher risk of type 1 diabetes. Data from two new studies presented last week, and a research letter just published, add to the growing body of knowledge on the subject, but still c...

Sep 27th, 2022 - OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will drop all COVID-19 restrictions for travelers from Oct. 1, including vaccination and masking requirements for flights and trains, the government said on Monday. The move is likely to boost the Canadian travel industry, already booming after months of lull during the pandemic. Canadian carriers were also pressing for an end to mask mandates on flights, citing thousa...

Sep 27th, 2022 - (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday it has authorized an additional five batches of Moderna Inc's updated Covid booster shots made at a Catalent facility in Indiana, after it deemed them safe for use. Last week, the health regulator had allowed use of ten batches of Moderna's updated booster shots made at the Bloomington, Indiana facility, owned by a unit of Catalen...

Sep 27th, 2022 - PARIS (Reuters) -French drugmaker Valneva said on Monday it is in talks with a potential partner on producing an updated version of its COVID-19 vaccine that targets new variants of the disease, sending its shares up. The French company has struggled to bring its COVID-19 vaccine to market to compete with rival products from drugmakers such as AstraZeneca, Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. Its share...

Sep 26th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - If rich nations think the pandemic is over, they should help lower-income countries reach that point too, a senior World Health Organization official told Reuters. In an interview, WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward warned that richer nations must not step back from tackling COVID-19 as a global problem now, ahead of future potential waves of infection. In the last few weeks, W...

Sep 26th, 2022 - SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported 999 new COVID-19 infections on Sept. 25, of which 295 were symptomatic and 704 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Monday. That is compared with 936 new cases a day earlier – 217 symptomatic and 719 asymptomatic infections, which China counts separately. There were no new deaths, the same as a day earlier, keeping the nation's fatalities...