The US is the most affected nation amid the pandemic, confirming over 33.4 million cases of COVID-19 and a death toll of around 598,000.
Next comes India, which suffered from a dramatic spike in the number of infected and deceased last month, recording a total of over 29 million cases and more than 359,000 fatalities. Brazil rounds out the top three, with more than 17.2 million cases and the second-highest death toll in the world of around 482,000.
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ZURICH (Sputnik) - The Swiss medicines regulator Swissmedic on Friday announced that US pharmaceutical company Moderna filed a request to approve the use of its coronavirus vaccine for teenagers aged 12 to 17.
Last week, the regulator authorised the use of the vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech for young people aged 12 to 15.
"COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, which was authorised as protection against the new coronavirus at the beginning of 2021, has until now been authorised for use in persons aged 18 and over. The authorisation holder – Moderna Switzerland GmbH – submitted an application for extension of the authorisation to the age group of 12- to 17-year-olds", the regulator said in a statement.
Swissmedic originally granted authorisation for the Moderna vaccine this January. The country has also registered the vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia delivered the first batch of its Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 to Zimbabwe, the Russian embassy in Zimbabwe said on Friday.
"On 9 June, the first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine was delivered to Harare. The drug’s supply was provided by joint venture ALROSA Zimbabwe in support of the Russian Federation’s assistance to Zimbabwe in fighting the new coronavirus pandemic", the embassy said.
According to its statement, during a solemn ceremony of the vaccine’s transfer on Friday, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa expressed his deep appreciation to Russia for its help.
The embassy added that this "gesture of goodwill" satisfies high-level agreements between Russia and Zimbabwe and testifies to "Moscow’s commitment to further increasing mutually beneficial partnership."
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is going to allow about 10 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed in the US or sent to other countries along with a warning notifying there is no guarantee the manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions followed good practices when producing them, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the situation.
The FDA has also ordered Johnson & Johnson to discard 60 million of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccines produced at the currently closed plant in Baltimore. The US drug regulator ordered the move due to the risks of the doses being contaminated as a result of an accident in late March at the Baltimore plant operated by Emergent BioSolutions, the report said.
Later on Friday, FDA confirmed that it plans to authorise the distribution of two batches of Johnson & Johnson vaccines in the United States and overseas and noted that it is not yet ready to include the Emergent BioSolutions plant into a list of the authorised vaccines manufacturing facilities.
FDA also confirmed that any export of the vaccines produced by Emergent BioSolutions for Johnson & Johnson will be conducted under condition that appropriate relevant information about manufacture process will be shared with the health regulators in the countries where the vaccines will be used.
On 5 April, Johnson & Johnson admitted to having produced a faulty batch of coronavirus vaccines at the East Baltimore facility owned by Emergent BioSolutions reportedly due to a mix-up of two ingredients that led to the ruining of about 15 million doses.
Yesterday I announced that the U.S. will donate half a billion additional Pfizer vaccines to help countries in dire need in this pandemic. In this moment — our values call us to do everything that we can to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/T1XCTgQs1y
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 11, 2021
Swami Sivananda reached a vaccine centre in Durga Kund in Varanasi, carrying his government identity card Aadhaar. After seeing that the man's birth year was 1896, the hospital staff showed reluctance in vaccinating him until he insisted.
The story is going viral in India as an example against vaccine hesitancy that is scaring people from getting jabbed - especially in the rural areas of India.
Bharat Biotech's US partner Ocugen Inc has said that it will push for full US approval of the Indian vaccine candidate Covaxin, instead of pursuing emergency use authorisation.
Covaxin was not given approval for emergency use in the United States by the FDA.
The FDA had sought more data on the clinical trials of the vaccine. The FDA rejected Bharat Biotech's proposal for emergency use approval of the COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin in the US because the company submitted partial trial data from March of this year.
LONDON (Sputnik) - The UK government, which is hosting the Group of Seven in-person summit starting on Friday in the English county of Cornwall announced that the leaders of the world´s richest nations will agree to donate 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low-income countries.
"At the Summit world leaders are expected to announce they will provide at least 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to the world through dose sharing and financing and set out a plan to expand vaccine manufacturing in order to achieve that goal", the official statement said.
Prior to the three-day meeting at the Carbis Bay Hotel, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had called his fellow G7 leaders to commit to vaccinate the entire world by the end of 2022, and to lead by example announced that the United Kingdom will donate at least 100 million extra COVID-19 vaccine doses within this year.
"As a result of the success of the UK’s vaccine programme we are now in a position to share some of our surplus doses with those who need them. In doing so we will take a massive step towards beating this pandemic for good", Johnson was quoted as saying in the official statement.
