Health News at Your Fingertips

Guinea began vaccinating against COVID-19 with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine on an experimental basis, starting with government officials, authorities said.

Guinea has ordered only 55 doses of the Russian vaccine, said Dr. Sakoba Keita, the director-general of the National Health Security Agency.

“We requested a small quantity of the vaccine, 55 doses precisely. This is the beginning of an order,” Keita said.

“Yesterday we vaccinated in this pilot phase 25 senior officials of the state. There are 30 doses left and we will continue with the vaccination.”

Guinea is one of the first African nations to vaccinate its officials.

Responding to the UK’s education secretary Gavin Williamson’s confidence in the new staggered school return procedures in January, Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary NEU union, said: “Serious questions have to be asked about the government’s plans for lateral flow testing in secondary schools and the readiness of schools and colleges to be able to get a system in place by 11 January to administer them.

“This is a very such a short lead-in time.

“There are also questions about the effectiveness of these tests in identifying Covid infection in young people who are highly likely to be asymptomatic, with the tests being supervised by non-medically trained volunteers.

“We do not think it likely that these tests alone can make our schools Covid-secure nor protect the communities they serve.”

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, accused the government of living “in a parallel universe” on the issue of setting up mass Covid testing in schools and colleges.

Singapore reported five locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Thursday, its highest number in nearly three months, and was seeking to verify two others suspected of being infected by a highly contagious variant first discovered in Britain.

The two individuals believed to be infected with the B117 variant, which has prompted new travel curbs worldwide, had both arrived from Britain this month and had earlier tested negative, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

Those included a commercial airline pilot who developed coronavirus symptoms despite a negative test last week, and an individual who had tested positive despite earlier completing two weeks of quarantine.

“Epidemiological investigations are in progress,” the health ministry said on Wednesday.

“All the identified close contacts of the cases have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that we can detect asymptomatic cases.”

Though Singapore has recorded more than 58,000 infections and 29 coronavirus-related deaths overall, many were in outbreaks in crowded migrant dormitories.

Its locally transmitted cases have typically been less than a handful each week, with larger numbers imported and detected in quarantine. Singapore reported 25 new imported cases on Thursday.

It last week confirmed its first case of the variant first found in Britain and preliminary tests indicated 11 others in quarantine were also infected with it.

Doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) said advice that first doses of the Pfizer vaccine should be prioritised and second doses be done within 12 weeks was “grossly unfair” for patients whose imminent second jab appointments could be rescheduled.

Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the BMA GP committee, said: “This group of very elderly patients is at the highest risk of death if they contract Covid-19, which is why GPs are so concerned for them.

It is grossly and patently unfair to tens of thousands of our most at-risk patients to now try to reschedule their appointments. Local leaders are telling us that is unprofessional and impractical to amend the appointments for thousands of frail elderly patients, particularly those booked and who have already made arrangements to have their second vaccination in the next two weeks.

The decision to ask GPs, at such short notice, to rebook patients for three months hence will also cause huge logistical problems for almost all vaccination sites and practices.

A total of 232,169 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to 23 December, according to the latest test and trace figures.

This is up 33% on the previous week and is the highest weekly total since test and trace began in May. However, just 16.9% of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England in the week ending 23 December at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit – a so-called “in-person” test – received their result within 24 hours.

This is down from 34.1% in the previous week and is the lowest percentage since the week to 14 October.

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, had pledged that, by the end of June, the results of all in-person tests would be back within 24 hours.

Of the 211,914 people transferred to the test and trace system in the same period, 85.8% were reached and asked to provide details of recent close contacts.

This is down from 88.6% in the previous week and is the lowest percentage since the week to 28 October.

Some 12.8% of people transferred to test and trace in the week to 23 December were not reached while a further 1.3% did not provide any communication details.

The world risks a “moral catastrophe” if Covid-19 vaccinations are delayed in Africa while wealthier regions inoculate their entire populations, the head of the continent’s disease control body said.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hopes significant vaccination campaigns on the continent would begin in April, its head, John Nkengasong, told reporters.

“That’s a long way to go given that this virus transmits very quickly,” he said, adding that in Africa, “the second wave is here with a vengeance”.

Cases of the new coronavirus have increased by nearly 19% since last week and deaths increased by 26%, according to Africa CDC data. Africa has recorded 2.7 million coronavirus infections and 64,000 deaths as of Thursday, it says.

South Africa, where a new variant of the virus has been detected, recorded 82,000 cases in the past week, he said.

We cannot delay, we need those vaccines and need them now,” Nkengasong said.

The major blockers to vaccinations beginning in Africa are global availability of doses and financing but wealthy nations have acquired vaccines in excess of what they need, he said.

“We don’t have to get into a moral crisis, where these things are stocked in the developed world and we in Africa are struggling to have,” Nkengasong said.

The African Union is in talks with the European Union, Canada and pharmaceutical companies to secure doses, he said, to secure vaccines in addition to what Africa has been promised by the World Health Organization’s Covax programme. Covax is a global scheme to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries.

It’s been one year to the day that health authorities in Wuhan, China reported an unknown pneumonia outbreak to World Health Organization (WHO) colleagues in Beijing.

Here’s a look back at what’s happened since in the city where it all started:

Dozens of elderly South Korean coronavirus patients were transferred from nursing homes to hospitals this week after criticism that government policy had led to a spike in deaths among the vulnerable residents.

South Korea’s total tally of infections passed 60,000 on Thursday, as 967 additional cases were reported.

At least 486 of South Korea’s 900 reported deaths were people over the age of 80. Only 40 deaths have been reported among people younger than 60.

At least 316 residents of nursing hospitals or nursing homes have died, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Thursday. When the KDCA reported a record 40 deaths in one day on Tuesday, 70% of them were residents of nursing homes or nursing hospitals.

Meanwhile, some 792 people had been infected at a Seoul prison since 27 November, the Ministry of Justice said earlier on Thursday, leading the ministry to minimise inmate contact and limit access to lawyers amid criticisms that it had inadequately dealt with the infection.

Kim Dong-hyun, president of the Korean Society of Epidemiology, said the government was repeating mistakes it had made during waves of infections earlier in the year, similar to mistaken steps in the United States and Europe.

“Even if they separate the infected patients to other floors and rooms, transmission is inevitable,” he said.

Ben Wallace has urged the British public to respect social distancing rules but said the army would not be deployed to “push people around”.

When asked why the army was not being used to clear out crowded public spaces, the defence secretary told Times Radio:

We have civilian authorities, police, others to be able to do that.

People need to take that responsibility but the army aren’t going to push people around in that way.

He added: “Our armed forces are there to support and help the civilian authorities – they have those powers.”

The UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said the military “stands ready” to help staff Nightingale hospitals if the NHS exceeds its capacity of critical care beds.

Speaking to Times Radio, the defence secretary said:

Of course we stand ready to help with Nightingales if the critical pressures go beyond the capacity of the existing NHS.

We are on, I think, 17,000 ventilator beds currently being used of a capacity of 21,000.

If it starts to tip over there, then of course you’ll see those Nightingales being more active and, yes, we have a number of medical staff.

The defence secretary has said the military will not be “imposed” upon the NHS to help with the Covid-19 response, but will be available if help is asked for.

Slovakia reported 6,315 new cases of coronavirus, the highest daily number so far, the government said.

The country of 5.5 million has recorded 179,543 cases so far, and 2,138 deaths, Reuters reports.

Scotland’s ability to give people aged over 50 the new coronavirus vaccine by a spring target will depend on supplies, according to the country’s health secretary.

Jeane Freeman also confirmed that Scotland would receive 44,000 doses of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine next week, with the four nations continuing to plan supply and delivery, PA Media reports.

After this second vaccine’s approval on Wednesday, the Scottish government announced it would be given to people north of the border from Monday along with the rest of the UK nations.

But speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland Programme, Freeman admitted they could not guarantee the target of being on track to vaccinate everyone over 50 by the spring without taking the issue of supplies into account.

Freeman said:

It can’t be a guarantee because it depends on supplies but what I do know is that our planning is ready.

Our modelling and the number of registered vaccinators we have is there.

As long as the supplies of both vaccines continue to come through to us then we are ready to deliver the vaccine to all of those in that Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority list – so that’s everyone over 50 – in the spring we will get there as long as those supplies arrive.