Four principles for urgent pharma action to combat Covid-19

‘Collaboration is needed between pharmaceutical companies and governments to combat the spread of COVID-19 and accelerate access to tests, treatments and vaccines. Norway, which co-chairs the Facilitation Council of the ACT-Accelerator, is committed to ensuring the global vaccination effort is managed effectively. Here are four principles which could ensure equitable access to COVID-19 tools and health products, particularly for low and middle-income countries:

• Principle 1: File for registration rapidly, widely and on the basis of the most rigorous standards
• Principle 2: Price health technologies fairly
• Principle 3: Expand production and supply capacity
• Principle 4: Transparency

Read here (World Economic Forum, Feb 9, 2021)

Norway moves to calm vaccine anxiety after elderly deaths

‘Health authorities in Norway sought to allay safety concerns raised by the death of some elderly patients after they were vaccinated against Covid-19, saying there’s no evidence of a direct link.

‘The initial reports from Norway raised alarm as the world looks for early signs of potential side effects from the vaccines. Although doctors say it’s possible that vaccine side-effects could aggravate underlying illnesses, they were expecting nursing-home residents to die shortly after being vaccinated because deaths are more common among the frailest and sickest elderly patients.

“Clearly, Covid-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination,” Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said by phone on Monday, adding that a connection between the vaccine and the deaths is difficult to prove. “We are not alarmed.”

Read here (Bloomberg, Jan 18, 2021)

Chinese health experts call to suspend Pfizer's mRNA vaccine for elderly after Norwegian deaths

‘Chinese health experts called on Norway and other countries to suspend the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, due to the vaccines' safety uncertainties following the deaths of 23 elderly Norwegian people who received the vaccine. 

‘The new mRNA vaccine was developed in haste and had never been used on a large scale for the prevention of infectious disease, and its safety had not been confirmed for large-scale use in humans, a Chinese immunologist said. The death incidents in Norway also proved that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines' efficacy was not as good as expected, experts said. 

‘As of Thursday, Norway has reported 23 deaths in connection with vaccination."So far, 13 of these have been assessed. Common side effects may have contributed to a severe course in frail elderly people," the Norwegian Medicines Agency said on its website. All the deaths have occurred in frail, elderly patients in nursing homes. All are over 80 years old and some of them over 90, Norwegian media NRK reported.’

Read here (Global Times, Jan 15, 2021)

Countries should meet these five criteria before easing lockdowns, study says. Many aren't even close

‘Countries should not ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions until they meet five criteria -- and many nations are not even close, according to a new analysis published in The Lancet medical journal. The research, published Thursday, said that the prerequisites for easing Covid-19 measures are: knowledge of infection status, community engagement, adequate public health capacity, adequate health system capacity and border controls.

‘The authors looked at nine high-income countries and territories that have started to relax restrictions -- Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Norway, Spain and the UK. They found that many governments had failed to meet the criteria necessary to avoid new waves of infection, as seen in Spain, Germany and the UK.’

Read here (CNN, Sept 25, 2020)