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Drugmaker Moderna says it has developed an experimental COVID-19 vaccine that combines its original shot with additional protection against the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

In an early study, Moderna said the shot, called mRNA-1273.214, offered a further boost against omicron when compared to just having a fourth dose of the original vaccine.

“We believe strongly that this data supports an update of the vaccine,” Dr. Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president, said Wednesday.

The development comes as U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization consider potential new vaccine formulas for new rounds of boosters later this year when another surge in COVID-19 could come.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet in June to evaluate new formulas.

Pfizer is also reportedly developing a combination vaccine.

Source: Voice of America

The risk of monkeypox becoming established in nonendemic nations is real, the WHO warned Wednesday, with more than 1,000 cases confirmed in such countries.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the U.N. health agency was not recommending mass vaccination against the virus and added that no deaths had been reported from the outbreaks.

“The risk of monkeypox becoming established in nonendemic countries is real,” Tedros told a press conference.

The zoonotic disease is endemic in humans in nine African countries, but outbreaks have been reported in the past month in several other states — mostly in Europe, and notably in Britain, Spain and Portugal.

“More than 1,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox have now been reported to WHO from 29 countries that are not endemic for the disease,” Tedros said.

“So far, no deaths have been reported in these countries. Cases have been reported mainly, but not only, among men who have sex with men.

“Some countries are now beginning to report cases of apparent community transmission, including some cases in women.”

Greece on Wednesday became the latest country to confirm its first case of the disease, with health authorities there saying it involved a man who had recently traveled to Portugal and who was hospitalized in stable condition.

The initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.

Tedros said he was particularly concerned about the risk the virus poses to vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and children.

He said the sudden and unexpected appearance of monkeypox outside endemic countries suggested that there might have been undetected transmission for some time, but it was not known for how long.

One case of monkeypox in a nonendemic country is considered an outbreak.

Tedros said that while this was “clearly concerning,” the virus has been circulating and killing in Africa for decades, with more than 1,400 suspected cases and 66 deaths so far this year.

“The communities that live with the threat of this virus every day deserve the same concern, the same care and the same access to tools to protect themselves,” he said.

Vaccines

In the few places where vaccines are available, they are being used to protect those who may be exposed, such as health care workers.

Tedros said that post-exposure vaccination, ideally within four days, could be considered for higher-risk close contacts, such as sexual partners or household members.

He added that the WHO would issue guidance in the coming days on clinical care, infection prevention and control, vaccination and community protection.

He said people with symptoms should isolate at home and consult a health worker, while people in the same household should avoid close contact.

Few hospitalizations have been reported, apart from patients being isolated, the WHO said last weekend.

Sylvie Briand, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, said the smallpox vaccine could be used against monkeypox, a fellow orthopoxvirus, with a high degree of efficacy.

The WHO is trying to determine how many doses are currently available and to find out from manufacturers what their production and distribution capacities are.

Source: Voice of America

American adults who haven’t yet gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 may soon get another choice, as advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday backed a more traditional type of shot.

Next, the FDA must decide whether to authorize the vaccine made by latecomer Novavax, a protein vaccine that’s made with a more conventional technology than today’s U.S. options.

Novavax shots are in use in Australia, Canada, parts of Europe and dozens of other countries. But U.S. clearance is a key hurdle for the Maryland-based company.

FDA’s vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said another choice in the U.S. may entice at least some vaccine holdouts to consider rolling up their sleeves.

“We do have a problem with vaccine uptake that is very serious in the United States,” Marks said. “Anything we can do to get people more comfortable to accept these potentially life-saving products is something that we feel we are compelled to do.”

If the FDA authorizes Novavax as the nation’s fourth vaccine, it’s not clear how widely it would be used, at least right away. About 27 million U.S. adults remain unvaccinated. Eventually, Novavax hopes also to become a choice for the millions more who haven’t yet had a booster dose of today’s vaccines. The shots are used elsewhere as a booster, regardless of which vaccine people got originally.

Tuesday’s question: Do the benefits of two primary doses of the Novavax vaccine outweigh any risks? The FDA advisory panel voted that they do, by a 21-0 vote with one abstention.

Large studies in the U.S., Mexico and Britain found two doses of the Novavax vaccine were safe and about 90% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19. One complication: Those studies were done far earlier in the pandemic, well before more contagious coronavirus variants emerged, including the omicron mutant and its relatives.

Novavax chief medical officer Dr. Filip Dubovsky said the company has tested a booster dose, and it revved up virus-fighting antibodies that could tackle that mutant.

This type of vaccine “we think generates a broad immune response against a broad array of variants,” he told the FDA advisory panel.

And while the trials showed generally people experienced only mild reactions such as injection-site pain or fatigue, the FDA did highlight a possible concern: six cases of heart inflammation, known as myocarditis, found among the 40,000 people who received the vaccine in studies.

Vaccines are coming under close scrutiny for the possibility of that heart inflammation after the Pfizer and Moderna shots were linked to that rare risk.

Novavax argued there were other potential causes for some of the cases in its trials. COVID-19, as well as other infections, also can cause heart inflammation. The company said more than 744,000 vaccinations in other countries so far support the shots’ safety.

The Novavax vaccine is made of copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus, packaged into nanoparticles that to the immune system resemble a virus. Then an immune-boosting ingredient, or adjuvant, that’s made from the bark of a South American tree is added that acts as a red flag to ensure those particles look suspicious enough to spark a strong immune response.

Protein vaccines have been used for years to prevent hepatitis B, shingles and other diseases.

That’s very different than the vaccines currently used in the U.S. The most widely used Pfizer and Moderna vaccines deliver genetic instructions for the body to produce its own copies of the spike protein. J&J uses a cold virus to deliver those instructions.

Manufacturing problems held up Novavax’s vaccine but the company said those problems have been resolved.

Source: Voice of America

In post-lockdown Shanghai, “open” means different things to different businesses, and the only shared sentiment is the future is hard to predict.

Some local businesses are bustling back. Some foreign companies are taking a more cautious approach, with some even contemplating leaving China.

With the lockdown lifted as of June 1, this will be a critical month for all businesses, according to a Shanghai economist, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In an interview with VOA Mandarin, the economist said it is too early to predict the strength of Shanghai’s economic recovery, in part because the metropolis of 26 million is not yet completely reopened. The biggest variable, he said, is the possibility of authorities discovering new cases throughout the city and reinstituting a lockdown in compliance with Beijing’s insistence on a zero-COVID policy.

Ker Gibbs, former president of American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, echoed that it is difficult to predict what’s next for the reopened city given that Omicron variants are so contagious.

Gibbs said that “reopening the ports and transportation hubs will be very important. But that’s also where you have a lot of COVID-19 related risk. So that’s going to be something that has to be managed.”

He told VOA Mandarin he hopes Shanghai authorities will increase the vaccination rate, especially among vulnerable populations, to avoid another lockdown. Shanghai is the world’s largest port, according to World Shipping.

Gibbs also said that because Shanghai has a large population of migrant workers —people who moved from city to city throughout China doing construction work, service jobs, and factory assembly— one of the biggest challenges in the reopening will be making sure people who left the metropolis can return and that those who remained can travel to workplaces in districts other than where they live.

Complicating the return to work is the city’s continuing patchwork of lockdowns. As of Monday, thousands of residents remained locked down in scattered neighborhoods and others have been placed back under these local lockdowns, according to Agence France-Presse.

Local businesses in Shanghai had varied responses to the reopening.

Jin Lei, a brand manager with Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist Mart Co., China’s largest retail conglomerate, said some famous restaurants that operate in the group’s mall, but do not belong to the group, such as the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant and the Ningbo Glutinous Rice Ball Shop, were open throughout the lockdown, offering take-out and delivery services. While he wouldn’t reveal the extent of lockdown losses, by June 1, the first day of official reopening, almost all of the mall’s workers were on the job.

“It’s almost 80% or 90%. It’s definitely a process, but [everyone will be back] very soon, because they are all restored now, the subway and traffic, they are all restored,” he told VOA Mandarin.

Hu Peng, CEO of Shanghai Heyi Tech Co., a high-tech service company, told VOA Mandarin the company reopened after the Dragon Boat Festival, which fell after a two-month lockdown. During the lockdown, employees worked from home to handle long-term orders, but as workers return to the office, she said, “I can’t say when we turn on the computer, everything is back right away.” She’s hoping travel restrictions in the areas surrounding Shanghai will be completely removed soon to facilitate business travel so people can visit customers face-to-face.

According to the latest data from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics, the total industrial output value of enterprises above a designated size in the city reached 128.6 billion yuan (about 19.3 billion U.S. dollars) in April, down by 60% from the same period last year. Foreign companies—including businesses from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan—have been hit the hardest during the two-month lockdown, and their output value is down by 70% in April from a year earlier, although they have resumed production.

Sue Yen, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association in Taipei, said Taiwanese companies in the information and communication technology sector operating in surrounding areas of Shanghai are still facing a labor shortage, with only about 70% of workers reporting for work in early June. She predicted it may take two weeks after the June 1 reopening for Taiwanese businesses in Shanghai to fully resume work and production.

Yen told VOA, “What everyone is most worried about now is the issue of dropped orders.” Buyers are asking if companies have factories in other provinces or in Southeast Asian countries, or Taiwan. If the answer is yes, the companies who place orders with you will be more at ease. However, if you don’t, they may place their orders elsewhere.”

She said the Taiwanese-funded factories are cooperating with Beijing’s determination to prevent a renewed surge by testing employees every day. Workers who test positive are moved outside Shanghai for quarantine or treatment to lessen the chances of widespread infection and factory closings, Yen told VOA Mandarin.

Darson Chiu, a research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research in Taipei told VOA Mandarin the Shanghai lockdown was the last straw for many foreign businesses, breaking their confidence in the Chinese economy as supply chain issues brought operations to a standstill. Even before the lockdown, he said many businesses felt that China was moving away from a market economy, making it harder for them to operate.

“Despite Shanghai lifting its lockdown, if relevant restrictions remain or another wave of outbreaks occurs, foreign businesses may expedite their exit [out of China],” Chiu said.

Separate surveys released by the Beijing-based European Union Chamber of Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce in early May showed that 23% of European businessmen surveyed are considering shifting their existing or planned investment in China to other markets this year while a whopping 52% of surveyed American businessmen said that its investment in China has been delayed or reduced.

European companies have reopened since June 1 with about 50% of their workforces, according to a written response from European Union Chamber of Commerce in China to a VOA Mandarin inquiry. Delays in reopening are being caused by ensuring the air conditioning systems are clean and complying with other similar internal policies.

According to a EU Chamber of Commerce survey released in early May, 58% of its members have downgraded their 2022 revenue projections as a result of the lockdowns, with more than a third of affected members doing so by more than 15%.

The Chamber said it hopes Shanghai authorities will add to economic recovery measures, such as its 50-policy Action Plan released May 29. The plan encompassed tax breaks, rent relief and subsidies for affected businesses.

Source: Voice of America