With 70% of the global population vaccinated, the health crisis will be abated this year: WHO

Afp, Ap and Europe Press

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday February 12, 2022, p. 6

Cape Town. The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, estimated that the The acute phase of the pandemic ends at the end of the year, of course, on the condition that 70 percent of the population is vaccinated by the middle of the year, around June or July.the official told reporters in South Africa.

It is in our hands (…) It is a matter of decisionhe added.

The WHO chief was visiting the laboratories of the Cape Town-based biotechnology company Afrigen, which made the first messenger RNA vaccine against covid-19 in Africa.

Prepared from the sequencing of the publicly available genetic code from the Moderna laboratory, this biological will be ready for clinical trials in November and will be approved by 2024.

This injection will be more adapted to the contexts in which it will be used, with fewer obligations for storage and at a lower price.he declared.

The Afrigen project is supported by the WHO and the Covax Mechanism for Access to Immunologists. Only 11 percent of Africans are vaccinated, the lowest rate in the world.

Adhanom arrived in South Africa yesterday for a two-day visit, accompanied by WHO technicians and Belgium’s Minister for Development Cooperation and Urban Policies, Meryame Kitir.

We are not out of the woods yet and we are probably going to be hit by new variants of covid-19 and a fifth wave (for Africa) that will coincide with our winterwarned the head of the WHO in the morning, walking through the different laboratories in Cape Town.

On the other hand, the city of New York will fire at least 3,000 officials, mainly policemen, firefighters, health personnel and teachers, if they maintain their refusal to be vaccinated.

Germany passed a law imposing compulsory vaccination for health and care workers, as the country approaches the peak of infections, currently reaching record levels, more than 200,000 in one day.

The Danish health authorities consider to end to the national spring inoculation campaign and they no longer see any reason to give a booster dose to children or a fourth injection to the population at risk who could become seriously ill.

The efficacy of third doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccines declines sharply by the fourth month of administration, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Once omicron became the dominant variant, the efficacy against hospitalizations was 91 percent for those who received their third dose within two months, but fell to 78 percent for people who received it at least four months ago.

The pandemic has left 407 million 771 thousand 748 confirmed cases and 5 million 798 thousand 343 deaths in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.