Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday his government is seeking to accelerate its COVID-19 booster shots campaign and has reached out to the head of U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer to secure additional vaccines.

Kishida told reporters the government has been negotiating to receive 120 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine ahead of schedule. He said during his call with the company’s CEO, Albert Bourla, he also agreed to purchase two million doses of Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 treatment, Paxlovid.

The government started arrangements Thursday to adjust the timeframe for workers and patients in elder-care facilities to receive booster shots to six months after their second shots. Health officials shortened the original eight-month timeline between initial vaccinations and booster shots after the discovery of the new omicron variant of coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Japan has confirmed a handful of omicron variant cases. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed on Friday that a man in his 20s who attended a soccer match near the capital was found positive for omicron.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno also confirmed 70 coronavirus cases have been found at the U.S. Camp Hansen military base in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa.

Matsuno said the Japanese government has urged U.S. officials there to thoroughly quarantine infected persons, identify close contacts at an early stage, and strengthen measures to prevent the spread of infection.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The U.S. government on Thursday permanently eased some restrictions on a pill used to terminate early pregnancies, allowing the drug to be sent by mail rather than requiring it to be dispensed in person.

The decision by the Food and Drug Administration comes as the right to obtain an abortion, established in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance.

The medication, generically known as mifepristone, is approved for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and is also sometimes prescribed to treat women who are having miscarriages.

“The FDA’s decision will come as a tremendous relief for countless abortion and miscarriage patients,” said Georgeanne Usova, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The restrictions on the pill had been in place since the FDA approved the drug in 2000 and were lifted temporarily by the government earlier this year because of the pandemic. That enabled women to consult health care providers by telemedicine and receive the pills by mail. The FDA’s decision makes that temporary change permanent.

As a result of the FDA rule change, many patients will not need to go to a clinic, medical office or hospital in person to receive the medication but can opt to receive the pill through the mail from a certified prescriber or pharmacy.

The decision will increase access to medication abortion for women in remote and rural areas without providers nearby.

Low-income women who face obstacles reaching clinics such as lack of transportation and inability to take time off work will also gain greater access to the drug.

However, 19 states including Texas have laws that supersede the FDA decision by barring telehealth consultations or the mailing of abortion pills. Women in those states would not be able to make use of the rule change at home but could potentially travel to other states to obtain medication abortion.

States such as California and New York that have sought to strengthen access to abortion may make the drug available to women from other states.

The change is likely to add to the intense U.S. political debate over abortion. Conservative Supreme Court justices indicated in December 1 oral arguments over an abortion ban in Mississippi at 15 weeks of pregnancy that they were open to either gutting Roe or overturning it entirely. A decision is due by the end of June.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute and Susan B. Anthony List, which advocate against abortion, said in a statement that the FDA decision ignored data on complications and put women at risk.

The groups called on the FDA to restore the in-person dispensing requirement and add restrictions.

FDA records show that of the 3.7 million women who took Mifeprex, the branded version of the drug, to terminate a pregnancy between September 2000 and December 2018, 24 died from complications.

Some restrictions remain

The FDA left in place some restrictions, such as the need to use a certified pharmacy and requiring the prescribers to be certified. The ACLU said it was “disappointing that the FDA fell short of repealing all of its medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, and these remaining obstacles should also be lifted.”

The organization sued the U.S. government on behalf of a Hawaii doctor and several professional health care associations in 2017, challenging the restrictions that it said limited access to medication abortion.

Medication abortion involves two drugs, taken over a day or two. The first, mifepristone, blocks the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone. The second, misoprostol, induces uterine contractions.
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A panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday voted to recommend that Americans choose one of the other two authorized COVID-19 vaccines over Johnson & Johnson’s shot because of the rare but sometimes fatal cases of blood clotting.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously on the recommendation. The regulator still needs to sign off on the guidance.

Cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which involves blood clots accompanied by a low level of platelets, have previously been reported in recipients of the J&J vaccine. The highest reporting rates are in women under 50.

The CDC said that the rate of such incidents is higher than previously estimated in both women and men.

At least nine people have died following the blood clotting incidents in the United States, the CDC has said.

Members of the panel also said J&J’s vaccine is less effective in preventing COVID-19 than the other two authorized vaccines.

In a presentation to the committee, a leading J&J vaccine scientist said the vaccine generates a strong and long-lasting immune response with just a single shot.

“In the setting where many people do not return for a second dose or a booster, the durability of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a primary regimen could make a crucial difference in saving lives in the U.S. and around the globe,” J&J’s Dr. Penny Heaton said in the presentation.

J&J’s vaccine uses a technology based on a modified version of an adenovirus to spur immunity in recipients, while the other two authorized vaccines use messenger RNA technology.

J&J’s one-dose vaccine received emergency use authorization in March. In April, U.S. regulators paused administering the vaccine for 10 days to investigate the blood clotting.

A CDC scientist said on Thursday that the rate of deaths from TTS did not decrease after the pause in April.

Fewer Americans have received the J&J shot than the other two vaccines — by a significant margin. Out of more than 200 million fully vaccinated people in the United States, around 16 million received J&J’s vaccine, according to CDC data.
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NASA touches the sun and looks to the future by traveling back through time. Plus, Japanese tourists visit the ISS, and a space-travel pioneer’s daughter follows in her father’s flying footsteps. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.
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Scientists in Hong Kong say the omicron variant of the coronavirus multiplies much faster in the airway passages, which could explain how the variant is spreading so fast around the globe.

A preliminary report by a team of researchers at the University of Hong Kong says laboratory experiments on tissue samples show omicron grows about 70 times faster than delta in the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs.

The study also found that omicron grows 10 times slower in lung tissues than the original version, which could indicate a lower chance of a severe illness.

Lead researcher Michael Chan Chi-wai cautions that the severity of disease is not only determined by how quickly the virus replicates, but also by each person’s immune response to the infection, which could evolve into a life-threatening illness.

Dr. Chan adds that “by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic.”

He says along with recent studies showing omicron can “partially escape immunity” from vaccines and previous infection, “the overall threat from the omicron variant is likely to be very significant.”

Omicron has now been detected in nearly 80 countries since it was first identified in southern Africa back in November.  Indonesia and New Zealand are the latest countries to report their first confirmed case of the virus.

On the vaccine front, an advisory panel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet Thursday to discuss imposing limits on the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of continued side effects.

The vaccine has been linked to a rare yet serious blood clotting disorder that occurs predominantly among women. At least six women out of the 16 million U.S. citizens who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been diagnosed with the disorder, including one woman who died.

The blood clotting disorder first emerged in April, soon after the vaccine began to be administered across the U.S., prompting federal health officials to suspend its use for several days while a safety review was conducted. Regulators added a warning about the potential for blood clots on the vaccine’s label, but concluded that its benefits outweighed the risks.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine trails well behind the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in terms of demand, both as an initial dose or a booster shot.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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The Israeli government on Wednesday said it was donating 1 million coronavirus vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX program.

The Foreign Ministry said the AstraZeneca vaccines would be transferred in the coming weeks, a decision that was part of Israel’s strengthening ties with the African countries.

“I am delighted that Israel can contribute and be a partner in eradicating the pandemic around the world,” said Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

The announcement said the vaccines would reach close to a quarter of African countries, though it did not provide a list. Israel has close ties with a number of African nations, including Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Israel also established relations with Sudan last year as part of a series of U.S.-brokered accords.

COVAX is a global initiative that aims to provide coronavirus vaccines to poorer nations. Wealthier countries have acquired the most of the world’s vaccine supplies, causing vast inequality in access to jabs.

Israel was one of the first countries to vaccinate its population. Early this year, it came under criticism for not sharing enough of its supplies with the Palestinians.

Since then, Israel has vaccinated tens of thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel and its settlements, and the Palestinians have procured vaccines from COVAX and other sources. 

 
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The White House COVID-19 Response team Wednesday said early data indicates the omicron coronavirus variant is spreading in the U.S., but current vaccine boosters appear to be effective in fighting it.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the variant is in 36 U.S. states and accounts for 3% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases, though it is higher in some areas, such as New York and New Jersey, where it may account for as much 13% of cases.

Walensky said while the vast majority — 96% — of U.S. cases are still caused by the delta variant, she said early data show the omicron variant spreads faster than delta, with cases doubling in about two days.

Walensky, along with White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 Response coordinator Jeff Zients, cited data showing being fully vaccinated along with a booster shot is the best way to fight off the new variant.

“Our booster vaccine regimens work against omicron,” Fauci said. “At this point, there is no need for a variant-specific booster.”

Walensky cited recent data from U.S. nursing homes showing unvaccinated or fully vaccinated residents without boosters were 10 times more likely to contract COVID-19 than residents fully vaccinated with boosters. Fauci cited the most real-world studies showing boosters can increase anti-body protection against omicron by as much as 35 times.

Zients cited CDC statistics showing an unvaccinated person is eight times more likely to be hospitalized and 14 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than a fully vaccinated person. He said a new study from the Yale University of Public Health shows the U.S. vaccination program prevented 10.3 million hospitalizations and saved 1.1 million lives.

The COVID-19 response coordinator said 14 million people received booster shots in the first two weeks of December, with 26 million total shots in arms during the same period. In total, the team reports more than 200 million U.S. residents are now fully vaccinated, and more than 55 million have received booster shots.

Some information in this report was provided by the Reuters news agency.
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The head of the South African Medical Association says there is a major difference between the delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus and warns politicians against hyping the threat from the new strain.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee criticized Tuesday what she described as the “over-reaction” to the heavily mutated omicron variant by some European governments and cited Britain’s Boris Johnson, who she accused of creating “hysteria” about the new strain.

On Tuesday, the House of Commons approved the reimposition of pandemic restrictions, and the introduction of some new ones, because of rising omicron cases in the country, although Johnson faced a major rebellion by a third of his parliamentary party and relied on opposition parties for the vote.

Coetzee was one of the first medical practitioners in the world to raise the alarm about the new variant. Its genomic data was sequenced last month by scientists in Hong Kong, Botswana as well as South Africa. The emergence has contributed to pandemic alarm in Europe, where governments are already battling the delta strain and are racing to reimpose restrictions.

Coetzee told Britain’s Sky News that delta was heart-breaking and that her patients who contracted it were “extremely, extremely sick” and when opening the door to them “you just knew they were in trouble,” she explained.

But nearly a month into the omicron wave in South Africa, she says she has not seen similar grim scenes and that her omicron patients are suffering much milder symptoms. Apart from one, who had HIV and other comorbidities, none have died.

The British government’s medical advisers are predicting one million omicron infections by the end of the month, and although South Africa is seeing tens of thousands of new cases daily.

Coetzee cautions calm, saying Britain and other European countries are much better vaccinated than South Africa and in a better position to battle it. “Even if you get breakthrough infections, it’s mild cases,” she added, saying she understands the need to take precautionary measures but says, “don’t hype it up.”

Some scientists disagree with Coetzee.

The chief executive of Britain’s Health Security Agency told lawmakers Wednesday that omicron “is probably the most significant threat since the start of the pandemic.”

Dr. Jenny Harries said the new variant was much more transmissible than delta and the rapid spread of omicron would lead to a “staggering” number of COVID cases over the next few days. She delivered a series of dire warnings about the country’s health care system, although she added it was probably too early to tell how serious the scale of increasing infections across the world would turn out to be.

“The difficulty is that the growth of this virus, it has a doubling time which is shortening, i.e., it’s doubling faster, growing faster,” she said.

Governments across Europe are closely observing events unfolding in Britain for a sense of what may lie ahead for them as omicron spreads, and they are worried that reinfection rates from omicron are much higher than has been seen with earlier variants.

Restrictions and penalties 

More countries are adopting restrictions. Italy this week required negative tests from vaccinated visitors to the country. Portugal has a similar measure in place. Many European countries have a virtual lockdown for the unvaccinated and are scrambling to increase vaccine booster programs. And more governments, including Germany’s, are proposing or considering mandatory vaccines.

Austria and Italy already plan to impose hefty fines on eligible people who do not get vaccinated. 

People over 65 years old in France will be under effective lockdown from Wednesday, if they have not received a third vaccine booster dose.

France’s health pass will no longer be valid for the elderly who have not received a third dose, barring those who have not been boosted from visiting restaurants or cafes or taking intercity trains. They will also be prohibited from visiting cultural venues like cinemas or museums.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Wednesday the European Union faces a double challenge, with a massive increase of delta cases in recent weeks and the threat of omicron looming. “We’re seeing an increasing number of people falling ill, a greater burden on hospitals and unfortunately, an increase in the number of deaths,” she told European Parliament lawmakers. 

“And what I’m concerned about is that we now [are] seeing the new variant omicron on the horizon, which is apparently even more infectious,” she added.

But as governments go into overdrive, some epidemiologists and virologists are echoing Angelique Coetzee. Professor Tim Spector, the head of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College, London, says the “majority of symptoms are just like a common cold, so we’re talking about headaches, sore throat, runny nose, fatigue, and things like sneezing.” He added: “So, things like fever and cough and loss of smell are now actually in the minority of the symptoms that we’re seeing.”

Earlier this week, the first major study published into the new variant also suggested illness from omicron is less severe than from delta. The study of 78,000 omicron cases in South Africa found the risk of hospitalization is 29% lower compared with the Wuhan strain, and 23% lower than with delta. Far fewer people have been needing intensive care. Just 5% of omicron cases have been admitted to intensive care units compared to 22% of delta patients, the study shows.

The data for the study was compiled by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest private health insurer, and the South Africa Medical Research Council. It noted omicron can evade vaccines more than earlier strains, but the study found vaccines are still holding up well, although there were high numbers of breakthrough infections in people who had been vaccinated.

Vaccine effectiveness against infection dropped from 80% to 33%, according to the study, but offered 70% protection against hospital admission. Boosters may also mitigate the reduction in vaccine effectiveness, according to the study. Some European scientists have cautioned, though, against reading too much into the South African study, saying that South Africa’s population is much younger and that demographic differences could alter medical outcomes.
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African leaders have called on governments across the continent to invest more in healthcare to fight the coronavirus and future pandemics. The appeal came as the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Union this week held the first Conference on Public Health in Africa.

Addressing the virtual meeting of African health workers and experts, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said governments could no longer ignore public health investment as the continent grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“There needs to be renewed commitment by government and national parliaments to increase domestic financing for health in Africa. This has been a priority for the African Union for several years but progress has not been fast enough. We cannot continue to rely on external funding for something so important for our future,” he said.

Twenty years ago in Abuja, Nigeria, African governments agreed to allocate 15% of their budgets to health care. Only two countries, Rwanda and South Africa, met the target. 

Africa has seen economic growth in the past few years but spending by governments on health has rarely increased. 

Health experts blame the lack of healthcare spending on low GDP growth, tax collections, and competing priorities. 

An Afrobarometer survey showed 46% of African citizens across 36 countries opposed paying more taxes to be used to improve healthcare. 

Across Africa, most health facilities are concentrated in urban areas, effectively cutting off millions from accessing advanced medical assistance. 

John Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the continent needs a new approach to raise health investment. 

“You all heard from our various leaders, political leaders, call for a new public health order that hinges on four things: strengthening public health institutions, workforce, expanding manufacturing on both vaccines, diagnostic and therapeutic, a respectful action-oriented partnership, which is all underpinned by the need to invest ourselves in supporting this domestic financing so that we can achieve these four goals,” he said.

African Union Commission Chairman Mousa Faki Mahamat pledged to support the development of health care systems that can deal with future challenges. 

“I would like to assure you today that African Union Commission stands firm in our resolve to bolster manufacturing capacity for the vaccine, diagnostic and therapeutics to build resilient health systems capable of detecting future health threats, and to build a finance mechanism that allows member states to respond efficiently and effectively to health needs of the continent,” he said.

According to the Brookings Institute, Africa needs funding models that encourage domestic resource mobilization and prioritization of health. 

For example, in 2019 Nigeria signed a $75 million financing agreement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to strengthen the country’s primary health care provision fund. 

Africa’s virtual conference on public health ends Thursday. 

 
…

COVID-19 was first discovered in China, which became the first country to produce a vaccine. Sinovac and Sinopharm are China’s leading vaccine makers, and both manufacture World Health Organization-approved COVID-19 vaccines.  

What’s the difference between the two companies?  

Sinovac is a privately owned company, while Sinopharm is government-run. Scientists at both companies use the same method to make both vaccines.  

How are the vaccines made? 

Dr. Andrea Cox, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a special interest in immunization, has provided expert advice to VOA about COVID-19 vaccines. Cox told VOA that scientists take a type of bacteria — or in this case, a virus — and inactivate or kill it. They then inject it into people. Because the virus is dead, it can’t infect anyone. Then, if a vaccinated person is exposed to the live virus, that person’s body recognizes it and fights it off.  

Are these vaccines effective?  

According to Cox, the Chinese vaccines are not as effective as the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, so they aren’t the preferred jabs in countries that have access to the others. The  hnsays the Sinovac vaccine is about 50% effective, while Sinopharm’s effectiveness is higher, at 78%, WHO reported. Two doses are needed for both vaccines. 

Vaccines are often mixed with an adjuvant, a harmless ingredient such as aluminum salts or a bubble of fat, to make them more effective. On its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “aluminum is one of the most common metals found in nature and is present in air, food, and water,” so it’s not a foreign or dangerous ingredient, although anti-vax groups claim it is. For example, Sinovac uses aluminum hydroxide, an ingredient also used to treat an upset stomach. Sinopharm also uses an adjuvant in its vaccine. 

Do the vaccines have advantages?  

The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have a major advantage over other COVID-19 vaccines: They are easy to store and need only normal refrigeration. That’s a huge plus in getting a COVID-19 vaccine to people in areas where there is little or no refrigeration. 

“In an ideal world,” Cox said, “we wouldn’t need them. But at this point, we need a way to get the world vaccinated as rapidly and effectively as possible, and it may require a use of vaccines that we know are not as good but are better than not being vaccinated.” 

What will end the pandemic? 

WHO says safe and effective vaccines are a game-changing tool, but for now and the foreseeable future, it recommends continued mask wearing, frequent hand-washing, good indoor ventilation, physical distancing, avoiding crowds and, above all, getting vaccinated when you can with whatever vaccine is available.  

“Having the world’s best scientists — and I do really mean the world’s best scientists — thinking about how to make effective vaccines and deliver them to a global population is critical,” Cox said. “And the more data we get on these vaccines, the more we will be able to select out vaccines that do protect the largest number of the world’s population.” 

As WHO says: “It’s not vaccines that will stop the pandemic, it’s vaccination.”
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The disfiguring disease noma, found mainly in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa that lack health care, kills 90% of victims, most of them children, when left untreated. Noma is preventable, and to that end, aid groups are urging the World Health Organization to add Noma to its list of neglected tropical diseases.

Eight-year-old Amadou Compaore recently recovered from noma, a little-known tropical disease.

Although noma has scarred his face, Compaore, relatively speaking, is one of the lucky ones. If noma is diagnosed within the first few weeks of infection, it is easily treatable with a course of antibiotics.

His father, Sibiri Compaore, told VOA, he noticed the disease in the run-up to Christmas. To begin with, Amadou said his mouth ached to the point where he couldn’t eat anymore. He even had great difficulty drinking sachets of water.

Compaore senior took his son to the nearest city, Kaya, about 25 kilometers away, where medical staff were able to identify the disease thanks to awareness building by the Swiss non-governmental organization Sentinelles.

Sidi Omar Boena is a nurse at a Sentinelles medical center in Ouagadougou, specializing in the treatment of noma.

He says most health workers in Burkina Faso have not heard of the disease noma and that diagnosing it in people 400 to 500 kilometers from Ouagadougou is very difficult.

He says that he is sometimes forced to diagnose noma with photos sent to him via WhatsApp.

Odette Serene, who also suffered from noma, now receives regular follow-up treatment at the Sentinelles clinic, including support in finding a job.

She now works as a tailor, but she says people still laugh at her, which makes her sad. She says Boena has done a lot to take care of her, however.

Noma is just one of many illnesses currently missing from the World Health Organization’s list of neglected tropical diseases.

Doctors Without Borders, a medical NGO, is running a campaign to have noma added to the WHO list, which already includes diseases like rabies and dengue fever.

“Of course, at the community level, there is discrimination affecting the patients, and so every time there is a case, we might not even be aware because patients are hidden by the communities or they are dying. More than 90% of people are estimated to die,” Jeantet said.

The WHO says when it adds diseases to the list, factors like social stigma and death rates are taken into consideration. The WHO says resources are limited, so some diseases have to be left off.

WHO press officer Ashok Moloo explains the effect of adding a disease to the list.

“It really brings the disease or the condition to another level … It also adds to the advocacy part of the disease, awareness creation and also resources,” Moloo points out.

As for Amadou Compaore, he says what the doctors have done to help him has been an inspiration. He told VOA he wants to become a doctor, to treat people so that they can be cured, like him.

The WHO plans to make possible new additions to its neglected tropical disease list in 2023. It remains to be seen if noma will be among them. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is encouraged by data released by Pfizer Inc on its COVID-19 anti-viral medicine and his administration has ordered enough of the pills to treat 10 million Americans.

“Getting vaccinated and getting your booster shot remain the most important tools we have to save lives. But if this treatment is indeed authorized “and once the pills are widely available” it will mark a significant step forward in our path out of the pandemic,” Biden said in a statement.
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A new study out of South Africa shows that Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine provides a high degree of protection against hospitalization from the fast-spreading omicron variant.

The real-world study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and Discovery Health, the country’s largest private health insurance administrator, was based on more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results between November 15 to December 7, with about 78,000 believed to be caused by omicron.

The study concluded that while the vaccine offered only a 33% rate of protection against an overall infection, it provided 70% protection against hospitalization. It also concludes that while there was a higher risk of reinfection during this current surge, the risk of hospitalization among adults was 29% lower than during the initial wave. Pfizer developed the vaccine in collaboration with German-based BioNTech.

South Africa is experiencing a dramatic surge in new daily COVID-19 cases driven by omicron, which was first announced by the country in November.

In a related development, Pfizer announced Tuesday that a new study of its experimental COVID-19 antiviral pill confirms it is highly effective in preventing severe disease among high-risk adults that could lead to hospitalizations and deaths, even against the omicron variant.

The company says it found that the drug, dubbed Paxlovid, reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 89% if given within three days of the onset of COVID-19 symptoms, and as much 88% if administered within five days.

Pfizer has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize use of Paxlovid based on results from a preliminary study.

The FDA is expected to announce soon whether to grant permission for doctors to use Paxlovid and a competing drug, molnupiravir, developed by Merck. Merck said last month a clinical trial revealed molnupiravir reduced hospitalizations and deaths by only 30% among high-risk adults.

The new developments come as health authorities around the world are warning that omicron could soon surpass delta as the most dominant variant of the coronavirus.

Denmark says omicron will trigger 10,000 new infections by the end of the week, compared to the current rate of 6,000 cases driven entirely by delta. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health also warned Monday that omicron “will soon dominate,” with new infections rising from 4,700 daily cases to a record 90,000 to 300,000 daily cases.

The new warnings come just days after the World Health Organization warned that omicron poses a “very high” global risk because its mutations may lead to higher transmission. The U.N. health agency said while the current vaccines are less effective against omicron, early data shows it causes less severe symptoms than other variants.

Meanwhile, China is reporting its second case of omicron infection on its mainland. A 67-year-old man tested positive Monday, two weeks after arriving in Shanghai from overseas. Authorities say the man repeatedly tested negative during his mandatory two-week hotel quarantine before flying to the southern city of Guangzhou, where he was spending another week in self-isolation at his residence. He tested positive for the new variant after researchers conducted genome sequencing.

The first case of omicron on mainland China was a person in the northern port city of Tianjin who tested positive for the new variant after arriving from overseas on December 9. The individual, who was shown to be asymptomatic, is now quarantined and undergoing treatment in a hospital.

The first cases of omicron on mainland China come two years after COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was first detected in the central city of Wuhan. China has since imposed a “zero-tolerance” strategy, including mass testing, snap lockdowns and extensive quarantines, as a means to prevent any further outbreaks.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Benin has adopted a new law legalizing abortion in most cases, one of the few African countries to do so. A conservative country, the law was passed by parliament to prevent a wave of clandestine abortions that have resulted in deaths. Kouam Joel Honoré has this report from Cotonou.
…

In a major victory for sexual minority advocates, Canada last week banned conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The law makes it a crime to subject anyone in Canada to conversion therapy, profit from the practice or take a Canadian outside the country to undergo conversion therapy elsewhere.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to hail the ban of what he called “a despicable and degrading practice.”

University of Ottawa student Jonathan Di Carlo calls himself a conversion therapy survivor, having undergone sessions “primarily in religious settings” for more than a decade starting at age 13.

“They included attempted demon exorcisms in front of people, forced one-on-one counseling where a pastor with no formal psychotherapy training convinced me that homosexuality was caused by an absentee father or that it was caused by being raped at a young age by someone of the same sex such as a father or uncle,” Di Carlo told VOA. “Then I was told to ‘fast,’ a biblical practice where a person doesn’t eat or drink except for water. … I did 40 days [of consuming] only water, twice.”

Conversion therapy has been rejected by an array of Western medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which linked the practice to “significant long-term harm” including depression, anxiety and possibly suicidal behaviors.

Last year, a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council found that conversion therapy is practiced in 68 countries and that victims may be subjected to “heinous physical and psychological violence.” The report added, “Attempts to pathologize and erase the identity of individuals, negate their existence as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse and provoke self-loathing have profound consequences on their physical and psychological integrity and well-being.”

Di Carlo says he knows the consequences firsthand.

“The torture of conversion therapy only made me more depressed with a lot of thoughts of suicide,” Di Carlo told VOA. “I self-medicated with alcohol for several years under the pressure of wanting to be straight but God not making me straight.”

Today, the student wells with a different emotion: pride.

“I think the fact that Canada made this move makes the nation stand out,” Di Carlo said. “It says that we have an approach to human rights that few other longstanding democracies have. It says that Canada acknowledges that this practice has no basis in science. It is criminal and it is torture.”

Canada is already seen as a popular destination for LGTBQ individuals persecuted around the world, hosting a charity aimed at encouraging this migration named the Rainbow Railroad.

LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, questioning. In Canada, “2” is often added to the end of the initials, recognizing some Indigenous people who identify as having both a masculine and feminine spirit.

Some Canadian faith-based groups argued against the ban on the basis of religious freedom. Additionally, an opinion piece appearing in The Globe and Mail newspaper framed the issue as a matter of personal liberty, asking, “should consenting adults be allowed to access services that are harmful to them?”

Canada joins four countries that have legally banned conversion therapy on a national level: Brazil, Ecuador, Germany and Malta. Germany bans the practice for minors or the coerced. It is banned in some U.S. states but not others.

Some worry that, even where it is banned, conversion therapy will continue.

Sexual minority rights advocate Fae Johnstone of Halifax-based Wisdom2Action worries that Canada’s ban won’t “fully eradicate the practice.”

Johnstone noted, “A lot of practitioners don’t describe themselves as conversion therapists.” She added that conversion therapy likely will continue as an underground practice.

For now, however, ban supporters are taking a victory lap.

“Survivors have been fighting for this day for decades, so seeing that advocacy, that struggle and that resilience finally payoff is overwhelming in the best way,” Nicholas Schiavo, founder of No Conversion Canada, told VOA. “This legislation sends a clear message to LGBTQ2 people both here in Canada and around the world that Canada remains a human rights leader and will step up to protect the most vulnerable in our communities.” 

 
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