Jun 27th, 2022 - PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - Late-stage data on an experimental COVID-19 vaccine from Sanofi and GSK show the shot confers protection against the Omicron variant of the virus, the companies said on Friday. The bivalent vaccine targets the Beta variant - first identified in South Africa - as well as the original Wuhan strain of the virus. In a trial involving 13,000 adults, the vaccine - based on re...

Jun 27th, 2022 - NEW YORK (Reuters) - COVID-19 vaccines this fall are likely to be based on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus rather than the original strain, although some experts suggest they may only offer significant benefits for older and immunocompromised people. Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax have been testing vaccines based on the first Omicron variant that became dominant last winter, BA.1, driving a...

Jun 24th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - GSK and Novartis reinforced commitments on Thursday to tackle neglected tropical diseases, as world leaders and health experts gather in Rwanda to discuss ways to better combat illnesses affecting more than a billion people, mostly in impoverished communities. The intention is to spur a renewed effort to address some 20 diseases that have been eradicated in the developed worl...

Jun 24th, 2022 - (Reuters) - Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday unanimously voted to recommend use of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine for children and adolescents aged 6 to 17. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to sign off on the recommendations soon, which would allow the U.S. government to start rolling out the Moderna vaccine for these age groups. That w...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - Leaders of the global scheme aiming to get COVID-19 vaccines to the world's poorest are pushing manufacturers including Pfizer and Moderna to cut or slow deliveries of about half a billion shots so doses are not wasted. COVAX, the World Health Organization-led scheme, wants between 400 and 600 million fewer vaccines doses than initially contracted from six pharmaceutical comp...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union wants to boost production of vaccines and drugs in Latin America by investing more in the region and by sharing technologies and regulatory practices, the head of the European Commission said on Wednesday. Under attack in developing countries for blocking a global temporary waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents, the EU has launched several initiatives to boo...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - (Reuters Health) - Pfizer's respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine RSVpreF has an efficacy of 86.7% in healthy adults ages 18 to 50, according to results from a small phase 2a study published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The test was done on 70 adults who were pre-screened to make sure they were vulnerable to RSV infection. They received a single injection of the vaccine or...

Jun 20th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) started a rolling review on Friday of a variant-adapted COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna, as coronavirus cases linked to Omicron sublineages see an uptick in the region. U.S.-based Moderna's bivalent vaccine targets two strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus behind COVID, an early version of the original strain first identified in China, and the Omic...

Jun 20th, 2022 - (Reuters) - People who were infected with an earlier version of the coronavirus and received three doses of an mRNA vaccine, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, appear to be best protected against symptomatic infection by the Omicron variant, according to a large study. Studying more than one million people in Qatar during the Omicron wave in early 2022, researchers found that in unvaccinated peo...

Jun 20th, 2022 - NEW YORK (Reuters) - People infected with the earliest version of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, first identified in South Africa in November, may be vulnerable to reinfection with later versions of Omicron even if they have been vaccinated and boosted, new findings suggest. Vaccinated patients with Omicron BA.1 breakthrough infections developed antibodies that could neutralize that vi...

Jun 17th, 2022 - DAKAR (Reuters) - The World Health Organization is procuring thousands of monkeypox tests for Africa and working to ensure the continent has fair access to vaccines should the need arise, WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said on Thursday. Monkeypox, a viral disease that causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions, is endemic in parts of Africa, but this year there has been an increase in case...

Jun 16th, 2022 - FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency on Wednesday launched a rolling review of a variant-adapted COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, as cases of new sublineages of Omicron are on the rise. When available, clinical trial data will be added to the rolling submission, which is designed to speed up any approval, BioNTech and Pfizer said in a joint statement. The pair a...

Jun 15th, 2022 - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union governments are intensifying pressure on Pfizer and other COVID-19 vaccine makers to renegotiate contracts, warning millions of shots that are no longer needed could go to waste, according to EU officials and a document. During the most acute phase of the pandemic, the European Commission and EU governments agreed to buy huge volumes of vaccines, mostly from ...

Jun 15th, 2022 - (Reuters) - Both commercially available mRNA vaccines are safe, with low risks of major adverse events, according to a large study that tracked 433,672 U.S. veterans for 38 weeks following vaccination. Half the group had received Moderna's COVID vaccine and the other half with similar characteristics and risk factors had received Pfizer/BioNTech shots. "Small-magnitude differences between the t...

Jun 14th, 2022 - (Reuters) - The rare but life-threatening inflammatory syndrome seen in some children after a coronavirus infection has become even more rare with the Omicron variant causing most infections and more kids vaccinated, according to a new study. Researchers looked at data from Denmark on more than half a million children and adolescents infected after Omicron became dominant, about half of whom ex...

Jun 13th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - GSK aims to get its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine to regulators for review later this year, after interim data showed the vaccine was effective in a keenly-watched late-stage study involving older adults. RSV is a leading cause of pneumonia in toddlers and the elderly, but the complex molecular structure of the virus and safety concerns have stymied efforts to dev...

Jun 13th, 2022 - (Reuters) - French drugmaker Valneva said on Friday it had proposed a remediation plan after receiving the European Commission's notice of intent to terminate the advance purchase agreement for its inactivated-virus COVID-19 vaccine candidate. "Some member states have confirmed their interest in having an inactivated, adjuvanted whole-virus vaccine solution in their portfolio," the company said...

Jun 13th, 2022 - LONDON (Reuters) - Available data suggest that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do not cause an absence of menstruation, the European Union's health regulator concluded on Friday. The assessment was prompted by reports of menstrual disorders after receiving one or two shots of either the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Menstrual disorders can occur due to a range of reasons, including underlying...

Jun 10th, 2022 - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Shionogi & Co Ltd said its COVID-19 projects in Vietnam are still progressing, after fraud scandals enveloped its partner there and the health ministry. Shionogi is carrying out trials of its experimental COVID vaccine and oral treatment in Vietnam, following a memorandum of understanding with the government and Advanced International Joint Stock Co. (AIC) in November....

Jun 10th, 2022 - (Reuters) - Pre-orders of vaccines for children under age five have been slow, but Biden administration senior officials say they are not alarmed and expect the pace to pick up after federal approvals later this month. The administration expects vaccinations of young children to start as early as June 21 if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...