Europe saw a seven per cent spike in the number of new recorded daily cases over the week but the situation has been worsening on the continent for nearly two months. The countries which suffered the largest spikes over the week were Austria (cases increased by 66 per cent), the Czech Republic (56 per cent), Greece (54 per cent) and Poland (45 per cent). Countries such as Austria and Iceland, which had earlier appeared to be relatively unscathed, are now tightening coronavirus restrictions to try to stamp down the rising infection rate.Austria on Friday said only those vaccinated or cured from coronavirus would be allowed to frequent restaurants, hotels and cultural venues as the Alpine nation battles a surge in cases.The new rule takes effect on Monday with a four-week transition phase to incentivise people to get jabbed, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said.“No one wants to split the society, but it is our responsibility to protect the people in our country,” he told a news conference.The EU member of almost nine million people recorded more than 9,300 new daily cases on Friday, a fresh record for this year.Besides considering hospitals’ ICU units filling up faster than expected, tourism-dependent Austria also fears being backlisted by other countries because of the rapid virus spread.Around 64 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, which is below the EU-wide average of some 67 per cent.Under the new rules, a negative Covid test will also no longer be sufficient for services with close contact such as at the hairdressers, and only those vaccinated and cured can attend gatherings of 25 people or more.Iceland also said it would tighten its Covid rules as it battles a rise in new cases, including capping gatherings and mandating masks in crowded areas.The new measures were announced after the World Health Organisation said that Europe was facing an alarming surge in cases, warning another 500,000 could die by February.Iceland has recorded 179 new infections in the past 24 hours, a record since the start of the pandemic, according to health authorities.“It’s uncomfortable to see how steep the curve is and the increase is greater than what we’ve seen before,” health minister Svandis Svavarsdottir told reporters following a ministerial meeting.The government said one-metre social distancing should be maintained in all public spaces, and if that is not possible, masks must be worn.The limit on the number of people allowed at public gatherings will be lowered to 500 people as bars and clubs will also have to close their doors at 11:00pm, two hours earlier than what is currently allowed.The restrictions will remain in place for at least four weeks. “The daily number of infections must be reduced to 40-50 and this situation must be maintained with restrictions until a better collective immunity is reached thanks to vaccine boosters and natural infections,” the Ministry of Health explained in a statement.While 89 per cent of the population aged over 12 is fully vaccinated in the Nordic country, the country’s chief epidemiologist on Friday called for a third dose for all people over 16 who have been fully vaccinated “for about six months”.“The usefulness of a booster dose to strengthen the immunity of each individual and society as a whole has now become very clear,” Thorolfur Gudnason said.Iceland, with a population of 375,000, has had a total of 14,255 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic and 34 deaths.INDIA CORONAVIRUS HOSPITAL FIRE KILLS 11Fire tore through a hospital in western India on Saturday killing at least 11 coronavirus patients, officials said.The blaze was the latest to hit pandemic wards across India. There were about two dozen patients at the intensive care unit in the hospital in Ahmadnagar district, Maharashtra state, when the fire broke out, officials said. Most of the dead were aged over 60.The hospital ward, which was left a charred wreck, had been newly built for coronavirus patients.Maharashtra state chief minister Udhav Thackeray ordered a formal investigation into the blaze and safety conditions at the hospital 250 kilometres from the regional capital Mumbai.India’s underfunded public health system was pushed to breaking point by a coronavirus surge in April-May. But a number of Covid-19 hospitals were hit by fire tragedies.At least 16 Covid-19 patients and two nurses were killed in a blaze at a hospital in Gujarat state in May. A police investigation blamed a short-circuit in the hospital’s ICU.In April, at least 13 Covid-19 patients were killed at a Mumbai clinic, which came just days after another hospital blaze in the city that left 22 dead.NEW JAB APPROVAL REQUESTED IN U.S. AGES 2-18US company Ocugen announced Friday that it had asked authorities for emergency use authorisation for Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, which was developed in India, for ages 2 to 18.Ocugen’s data, gathered from clinical trials conducted outside of the United States with only a small group of children, may not be enough for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to grant the request.Covaxin, developed in India by Ocugen’s partner, Bharat Biotech, gained emergency approval from the World Health Organisation on Wednesday and has already been cleared for use in 17 countries.Tens of millions of doses have been administered to adults outside of the United States, notably in India.The immunisation uses inactivated virus technology, common in other childhood vaccines including polio shots.The approval request is based on results from a study of 526 kids between ages 2 and 18 who received two doses of Covaxin 28 days apart.The findings were compared with those from a group of 25,800 adults in India, which suggested “similar protection in children, ages 2-18, to that demonstrated in adults older than 18 years,” the company said.Ocugen co-founder Shankar Musunuri in a press release called the move “a significant step toward our hope to make our vaccine candidate available here.” In the clinical trial with 526 children, no serious adverse events or hospitalisation were observed, but the study’s sample size may not have been large enough to detect rare side effects.The FDA asked Pfizer and Moderna, whose Covid-19 vaccines have already been authorised in the United States, to conduct trials with thousands of children to have a better insight into any side effects.Pfizer’s shot is the only one approved in the United States for children under the age of 18, and health authorities cleared the way this week for 5 to 11-year-olds to receive the vaccine.PFIZER PILL A STEP TOWARDS ENDING THE PANDEMICPfizer has announced that a clinical trial of its pill to treat Covid-19 has shown it is highly effective, hailing it is as a big step towards ending the pandemic.A simple pill to treat the coronavirus at home has been sought since the start of the global health crisis. So far all treatments have been either intravenous or vaccine shots.Pfizer’s is the second anti-Covid pill after that of Merck, which is actually an influenza medicine rebranded to fight the coronavirus. Pfizer’s has been created specifically to fight Covid.The Pfizer drug called Paxlovid achieved an 89 per cent reduction in risk of hospitalisation or death among adult patients with Covid who are at high risk of progressing to severe illness, the US company said.The results from the middle-to-late stage clinical trial were so strong that Pfizer will stop recruiting new people for the trial, it said.Pfizer will submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible as part of its “rolling submission” for Emergency Use Authorisation.“Today’s news is a real game-changer in the global efforts to halt the devastation of this pandemic,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.“These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved or authorised by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of 10 hospitalisation,” he added.The main analysis of the data looked at numbers from 1219 adults in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.In the days immediately after symptoms appeared, some of them were given the experimental drug and others got a placebo — for five days, every 12 hours.“The scheduled interim analysis showed an 89 per cent reduction in risk of Covid-19-related hospitalisation or death from any cause compared to placebo in patients treated within three days of symptom onset,” Pfizer said.Ten people who took the placebo died, while among those who got the Pfizer medication, none did.Pfizer had planned a testing pool of 3,000 people but stopped when it got to 70 per cent of that because the results of the medication were so promising.NED-4191-Pfizer-side-effectsTHE SEARCH FOR A PILLSeveral companies are working on so-called oral antivirals, which would mimic what the drug Tamiflu does for influenza and prevent the disease from progressing to severe.Britain on Thursday became the first country to approve an anti-Covid pill, as it greenlit the use of Merck’s antiviral drug called molnupiravir to treat patients suffering from mild to moderate coronavirus.Pfizer’s product is known as a “protease inhibitor” and has been shown in lab testing to jam up the virus’ replication machinery.If it works in real life, it will likely only be effective at the early stages of infection.By the time Covid progresses to severe disease, the virus has largely stopped replicating and patients suffer from an overactive immune response.Until now, Covid therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies and Gilead’s remdesivir — authorised for use in the EU under the name Veklury — have been administered intravenously.Merck’s molnupiravir was initially developed as an inhibitor of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus — two other important acute respiratory infections — by a team at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.Britain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, announced on October 20 that it had ordered 480,000 doses of molnupiravir.Pfizer is carrying out two other clinical trials with its pill: among people who are not at risk of progressing to severe Covid, and among people close to someone with Covid to see if it protects them against the illness.Besides Pfizer and Merck, the Swiss pharma giant Roche is also working on a Covid pill.UK FIRST TO APPROVE COVID PILLEarlier this week, Britain became the first country to approve an antiviral pill to treat Covid-19. Approval for Merck’s antiviral drug allows a new treatment for patients suffering from mild to moderate coronavirus, regulators said.The antiviral, called molnupiravir, works by decreasing the ability of a virus to replicate, thereby slowing down the disease.Based on the clinical trial data, the drug is most effective when taken during the early stages of infection and the MHRA recommends that it be used within five days of the onset of symptoms.It has been authorised for use in people who have at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, including obesity, old age, diabetes and heart disease.Britain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, announced on October 20 that it had ordered 480,000 doses of molnupiravir from US pharma giant Merck.Drug regulators in the United States and the European Union have already begun an evaluation of the drug.The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said its trials had concluded it was “safe and effective at reducing the risk of hospitalisation and death in people with mild to moderate Covid-19 who are at increased risk of developing severe disease”.“This will be a game-changer for the most vulnerable and the immunosuppressed, who will soon be able to receive the groundbreaking treatment,” said health Minister Sajid Javid.Merck has already signed agreements with other governments, including the US, which has planned to buy 1.7 million doses if molnupiravir if approved by regulators.MHRA chief executive June Raine called the pill important because it means it can be administered “outside of a hospital setting.”Clinical trials found the drug to be effective in reducing the risk of hospital admission or death for at-risk non-hospitalised adults by 50 per cent, according to Munir Pirmohamed, chair of the Commission on Human Medicines.But experts have warned that the treatment is not a miracle cure and Pirmohamed said it was not intended to be used as a substitute for vaccination against the virus.
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