Displaying items by tag: Covid immunisation

When the G20 leaders met in Rome last weekend, at their first face to face meeting since the pandemic started, climate change and Covid were on the agenda. The talks come amid increasingly dire warnings for the future if urgent action is not taken to cut emissions. The G20 group of countries and the EU account for 80% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. According to Reuters, a draft communiqué outlined a promise from the G20 to work towards limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5C, saying it ‘will require meaningful and effective actions by all countries’. Covid vaccine equality is also on many leaders' minds. Italy’s prime minister said that just 3% of the six billion Covid vaccines administered worldwide had gone to the poorest countries, which was ‘morally unacceptable’. He called fellow leaders to do ‘all we can’ to vaccinate 70% of the world's population by the middle of 2022.

An antiviral pill has cut the chances of Covid-19 patients being hospitalised or dying by 50% in late-stage trials, raising hopes of a new weapon in the arsenal against the virus. The pill, Molnupiravir, was initially developed to tackle influenza but is also effective at reducing deaths and hospitalisations from Covid, the data from human trials showed. The manufacturers will now seek emergency authorisation in the United States as soon as possible and submit their data to regulators worldwide. A simple pill that can be taken at home to stop the disease in its tracks has been a key aim throughout the pandemic. Until now, Remdesivir, another existing antiviral, was the only one licensed to treat Covid - but it has to be administered intravenously and results have been modest. Other antivirals are also in development, including some specifically targeted at Covid-19, such as a pill currently being tested by Pfizer.