This file photo taken on June 4, 2021 shows a vial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a pharmacy in Paris, France. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
OTTAWA / COPENHAGEN / LOS ANGELES / PRAGUE – Canada on Thursday authorized Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine for babies as young as 6 months old, making it the country's first vaccine against coronavirus for children under 5, Health Canada said.
Canada had been offering Moderna's Spikevax vaccine to children above 5 since March, and the latest authorization means some 1.7 million more children are now eligible for inoculation against COVID-19, according to Health Canada.
Moderna had applied for the expansion of eligibility for its vaccine in late April.
"After a thorough and independent scientific review of the evidence, Health Canada has determined that the benefits of this vaccine for children between 6 months and 5 years of age outweigh the potential risks," Health Canada said in a statement.
The health authority has recommended that children under 5 be given vaccine doses one quarter the size authorized for people over 12 years of age.
In another development, Canada will resume COVID-19 mandatory random testing for travelers who qualify as fully vaccinated, arriving in the country by air to four major airports: Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto, as of July 19, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) announced Thursday.
According to the PHAC, all testing for air travellers, for both those who qualify as fully and partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, will be completed outside of airports, either via an in-person appointment at select testing provider locations and pharmacies, or a virtual appointment for a self-swab test.
Travelers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, unless exempt, continue to test on Day 1 and Day 8 of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.
If the arrival test result is positive, a 10-day isolation is required, the PHAC said.
A nurse treats a patient infected with the coronavirus in an intensive care unit (ICU) in the General University Hospital in Prague on Jan 26, 2022. (MICHEL CIZEK / AFP)
Czech Republic
Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Valek on Thursday recommended that people wear face masks in public transport and health facilities amid rising COVID-19 infections in the country.
"Not only in my capacity as a minister but also as a physician I strongly recommend: wear face masks. Wear them in public transport means. Wear them if you have any symptoms, as you thereby protect your elderly relatives, and also when visiting a health facility," Valek told the Czech News Agency (CTK).
He said that the use of the mask "makes sense at places with a high concentration of people and poor air conditioning," typically in public transport and also at places with the concentration of high-risk people, such as medical waiting rooms and old people's homes.
Daily COVID-19 infections in the Czech Republic started to rise at the end of June mainly due to the more contagious subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of the Omicron coronavirus variant. More than 1,000 daily cases were recorded for five consecutive working days in the last week of June.
On Monday, the country recorded more than 2,000 new cases for the first time since late April, and in the following two days, there have been close to 2,000 new cases each day. COVID-19 hospitalizations also continued to rise, reaching 369 on Wednesday, compared with 260 a week ago.
An illustration picture shows vials with COVID-19 Vaccine stickers attached and syringes with the logo of US biotech company Novavax on Nov 17, 2020.
(JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)
European Medicines Agency (EMA)
The European Medicines Agency on Thursday identified severe allergic reactions as potential side effects of Novavax Inc's COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine was authorized by US regulators on Wednesday, and its product label in the United States warns against administering the shot to people with a history of allergic reactions to any components of the shot. read more
The EMA said it would also update the product information for the vaccine to add unusual or decreased feeling in the skin as a new side effect.
Only 250,000 doses of Novavax's COVID vaccine, Nuvaxovid, have been administered in Europe so far since its launch in December, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
An employee at a Nordisk Film cinema in the center of Copenhagen on May 6, 2021 checks the "Corona pass” of a customer as they come to watch a film on the first day that movie theaters in the Danish capital reopened after being closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. (TOM LITTLE / AFP)
Denmark
Denmark has detected the first case of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 thanks to its COVID-19 sequencing efforts, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
"Although the BA.2.75 subvariant has caused more infections in some countries than any other known variant, it is unknown whether it will be able to compete with BA. 5. (which is dominant) in Denmark," said the Health Ministry on Twitter.
The case was discovered in a Dane who had returned from vacation in Greece, where he or she was most likely infected, Danish news agency Ritzau quoted Soren Alexandersen, professional director with the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) as saying.
According to Alexandersen, the new subvariant is more contagious than previous Omicron variants due to a number of mutations in the so-called Spike protein.
The SSI director did not deny the possibility of further infections of the new sub-variant in Denmark.
"If BA.2.75 gains ground in Denmark, we could see a new small peak here this summer."
BA.2.75 was first detected in India. There are fears that it may spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infections.
By July 12, Denmark had reported 3,199,299 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 6,530 coronavirus-related deaths.
With COVID-19 infections on the rise, Denmark has announced plans to provide a fourth vaccine dose this autumn to nearly 2.5 million people living in nursing homes or aged over 50.
United States
Interferon treatment may reduce the severity of COVID-19 in people with certain genetic factors, according to a new study published on Thursday.
Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health and their collaborators have discovered that people of European and African ancestries who were hospitalized for COVID-19 are more likely to carry a particular combination of genetic variants in a gene known as OAS1 than patients with mild disease, according to the study published in Nature Genetics.
People with this combination of genetic variants also remain positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection longer, said the study.
However, interferon treatment may reduce the severity of COVID-19 in people with these genetic factors, according to the study.
Interferons are a type of protein that can help the body's immune system fight infection and other diseases, such as cancer.