Coronavirus world: ‘Highly effective’ Pfizer Covid pill could help end pandemic
A Covid pill developed by Pfizer has shown to cut rates of hospitalisation and death from the virus by nearly 90 per cent and could help end the pandemic.
Coronavirus
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Pfizer has announced that a clinical trial of its pill to treat Covid-19 has shown it is highly effective, hailing it is as a big step towards ending the pandemic.
A simple pill to treat the coronavirus at home has been sought since the start of the global health crisis. So far all treatments have been either intravenous or vaccine shots.
Pfizer’s is the second anti-Covid pill after that of Merck, which is actually an influenza medicine rebranded to fight the coronavirus. Pfizer’s has been created specifically to fight Covid.
The Pfizer drug called Paxlovid achieved an 89 per cent reduction in risk of hospitalisation or death among adult patients with Covid who are at high risk of progressing to severe illness, the US company said.
The results from the middle-to-late stage clinical trial were so strong that Pfizer will stop recruiting new people for the trial, it said.
Pfizer will submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible as part of its “rolling submission” for Emergency Use Authorisation.
“Today’s news is a real game-changer in the global efforts to halt the devastation of this pandemic,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
“These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved or authorised by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of 10 hospitalisation,” he added.
The main analysis of the data looked at numbers from 1219 adults in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
In the days immediately after symptoms appeared, some of them were given the experimental drug and others got a placebo — for five days, every 12 hours.
“The scheduled interim analysis showed an 89 per cent reduction in risk of Covid-19-related hospitalisation or death from any cause compared to placebo in patients treated within three days of symptom onset,” Pfizer said.
Ten people who took the placebo died, while among those who got the Pfizer medication, none did.
Pfizer had planned a testing pool of 3,000 people but stopped when it got to 70 per cent of that because the results of the medication were so promising.
THE SEARCH FOR A PILL
Several companies are working on so-called oral antivirals, which would mimic what the drug Tamiflu does for influenza and prevent the disease from progressing to severe.
Britain on Thursday became the first country to approve an anti-Covid pill, as it greenlit the use of Merck’s antiviral drug called molnupiravir to treat patients suffering from mild to moderate coronavirus.
Pfizer’s product is known as a “protease inhibitor” and has been shown in lab testing to jam up the virus’ replication machinery.
If it works in real life, it will likely only be effective at the early stages of infection.
By the time Covid progresses to severe disease, the virus has largely stopped replicating and patients suffer from an overactive immune response.
Until now, Covid therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies and Gilead’s remdesivir — authorised for use in the EU under the name Veklury — have been administered intravenously.
Merck’s molnupiravir was initially developed as an inhibitor of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus — two other important acute respiratory infections — by a team at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Britain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, announced on October 20 that it had ordered 480,000 doses of molnupiravir.
Pfizer is carrying out two other clinical trials with its pill: among people who are not at risk of progressing to severe Covid, and among people close to someone with Covid to see if it protects them against the illness.
Besides Pfizer and Merck, the Swiss pharma giant Roche is also working on a Covid pill.
UK FIRST TO APPROVE COVID PILL
Earlier this week, Britain became the first country to approve an antiviral pill to treat Covid-19. Approval for Merck’s antiviral drug allows a new treatment for patients suffering from mild to moderate coronavirus, regulators said.
The antiviral, called molnupiravir, works by decreasing the ability of a virus to replicate, thereby slowing down the disease.
Based on the clinical trial data, the drug is most effective when taken during the early stages of infection and the MHRA recommends that it be used within five days of the onset of symptoms.
It has been authorised for use in people who have at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, including obesity, old age, diabetes and heart disease.
Britain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, announced on October 20 that it had ordered 480,000 doses of molnupiravir from US pharma giant Merck.
Drug regulators in the United States and the European Union have already begun an evaluation of the drug.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said its trials had concluded it was “safe and effective at reducing the risk of hospitalisation and death in people with mild to moderate Covid-19 who are at increased risk of developing severe disease”.
“This will be a game-changer for the most vulnerable and the immunosuppressed, who will soon be able to receive the groundbreaking treatment,” said health Minister Sajid Javid.
Merck has already signed agreements with other governments, including the US, which has planned to buy 1.7 million doses if molnupiravir if approved by regulators.
MHRA chief executive June Raine called the pill important because it means it can be administered “outside of a hospital setting.”
Clinical trials found the drug to be effective in reducing the risk of hospital admission or death for at-risk non-hospitalised adults by 50 per cent, according to Munir Pirmohamed, chair of the Commission on Human Medicines.
But experts have warned that the treatment is not a miracle cure and Pirmohamed said it was not intended to be used as a substitute for vaccination against the virus.
US APPROVES PFIZER VACCINE FOR KIDS
The United States can now start giving children aged 5-11 the Pfizer Covid vaccine in a move hailed by President Joe Biden as a “turning point” in the fight against the pandemic.
Days after the Food and Drug Administration approved it, the vaccine was endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, clearing the way for the vaccination of up to 28 million children.
The government was well ahead of the decision, procuring enough doses for the children in the 5-11 age group and beginning to ship them across the country.
“Today, we have reached a turning point in our battle against Covid-19,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Vaccinating younger children will “allow parents to end months of anxious worrying about their kids, and reduce the extent to which children spread the virus to others.
It is a major step forward for our nation in our fight to defeat the virus,” the president continued.
The government has already secured enough vaccine for every child in America, he said, adding that over the weekend officials began the process of packing and shipping millions of doses.
“The program will ramp up over the coming days, and (be) fully up and running during the week of November 8,” he said.
The vaccine will still be given in two injections, three weeks apart. The dosage has been adjusted to 10 micrograms per injection, compared to 30 micrograms for the older age groups.
The caps on the children’s vials will be orange, making them easily recognisable compared to the purple caps on the vials for older groups.
“I encourage parents with questions to talk to their paediatrician, school nurse or local pharmacist to learn more about the vaccine and the importance of getting their children vaccinated,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.
Coronavirus co-ordinator Jeff Zients said the US was is in the production process of 15 million doses but that they would quickly have enough Pfizer jabs to vaccinate 28 million children aged between 5 and 11-years-old.
“We are not waiting on the operations and logistics,” Mr Zients said.
“More doses will be packed and shipped and delivered,” he added.
“More and more vaccines will come on line as we ramp up.”
HECKLERS END ARDEN Covid SPEECH
Anti-vaxxers brought a Covid-19 press conference by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to a premature halt.
Speaking at Northland, on the country’s North Island, Ms Ardern was ambushed by a female member of the public and a man claiming to be a journalist, while commenting on New Zealand’s vaccine rollout and its progress in the region.
Upon being interrupted, the Prime Minister warned she was only going to answer questions from the “accredited media”.
The man was undeterred, speaking over Ms Ardern, saying: “Why is the vaccine not working in Israel? And you are still pushing it.”
She told him he was being rude, but the man replied: “It’s rude to lie to the public of New Zealand”.
That was enough for Ms Ardern, who ended the press conference but said she would be happy to continue indoors, away from the public.
PANDEMIC DEATH TOLL HITS FIVE MILLION
The global death toll from coronavirus topped five million on Monday, local time, less than two years into the Covid-19 pandemic.
The United States alone has reported 745,000 deaths from the virus, more than any other country.
The US, the European Union, Britain and Brazil account for nearly half of all reported deaths, while accounting for just one eight of the world’s population.
The world’s actual death toll is thought to be much higher than the figures tallied by Johns Hopkins University.
It comes as Indonesia, hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, became the first country to approve the new vaccine for Covid-19 created by US-based Novavax, the company announced Monday.
The approval will give Indonesia, which has strained to obtain adequate supplies of coronavirus vaccine for its 270 million people, first access to the vaccine, which will be manufactured in India under the brand Covovax.
The vaccine uses a different technology than those which already have gained general approval and circulated around the world.
Unlike the mRNA products from BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and Curevac, Novavax’s two-jab vaccine relies on a more traditional technique, using proteins to carry fragments of the coronavirus rendered harmless to produce an immune reaction.
In addition, the vaccine can be held at higher temperatures than others – 2-8 degrees Celsius – making its transportation and storage easier, especially in developing countries.
“The first authorisation of Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine exemplifies our commitment to equitable global access and will fill a vital need for Indonesia, which despite being the fourth most populous nation on earth, continues to work to procure sufficient vaccine for its population,” said Novavax chief executive Stanley Erck.
The vaccine will be produced by the Serum Institute of India, and deliveries will begin “imminently,” according to a statement from Novavax.
In June, the company reported that tests of the vaccine on 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico demonstrated that it is 90.4 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic infection and 100 per cent effective against moderate and severe disease.
The company has submitted applications for approval of the vaccine in numerous countries and the European Medicines Agency, and has sought emergency use listing with the World Health Organisation.
An application to the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, will be made by the end of the year, the company said.
It also has preliminary orders, pending approval, for 200 million doses from the European Commission and 150 million from Japan.
“Novavax continues to deliver regulatory filings that we expect will bring the first protein-based COVID-19 vaccine based on Phase 3 data to the world,” Erck said.
BON JOVI TESTS POSITIVE FOR Covid
Singer Jon Bon Jovi has tested positive for Covid-19, forcing him to cancel a performance at a Florida concert on Saturday.
Minutes before he was supposed to take to the stage, the fully vaccinated star made the decision to pull out of the Miami Beach concert after receiving the shock diagnosis.
The 59-year-old had been scheduled to play at the Loews South Beach for an acoustic Halloween performance, before the singer’s brother took the stage with the bad news just as the show was about to kick off.
Matt Bongiovi told disappointed fans that Jon had tested positive for the virus after the band had all taken a rapid test, according to the New York Post.
He assured the crowd that his brother “feels great”, but would be going “to bed” instead of performing.
However, the other members of the band — who tested negative — went ahead with the show and played their set for the crowd.
Footage shows Bon Jovi leaving the venue flanked by his entourage, before getting into a yellow Maserati that was driven by his brother.
Saturday night’s show was the second of three nights planned in Miami for Runaway Tours Halloween Weekend Getaway, scheduled from Friday to Sunday.
It’s not the first time Bon Jovi has experienced a Covid-19 scare. Last year his 18-year-old son Jacob tested positive for the virus, along with Bon Jovi’s keyboard player David Bryan and percussionist Everett Bradley.
It comes as Ed Sheeran shared his bumpy ride with Covid after revealing to fans last week that he and one-year-old daughter Lyra had tested positive.
“It was quite heavy at the beginning of the week. But I’ve rested a lot and I had a lot of vitamin C and zinc and (Vitamin) D and all these pills,” he told Zane Lowe.
“I feel a lot better now.”
HONG KONG, CHINA DOUBLE DOWN ON RESTRICTIONS
Hong Kong’s decision to descend deeper into international coronavirus isolation as rivals reopen is causing consternation among managers at multinationals who see no end to a zero-Covid strategy imposed by a leadership beholden to Beijing.
The southern Chinese business hub has kept coronavirus at bay thanks to some of the world’s strictest quarantine rules with most arrivals undergoing 14 to 21 days of hotel confinement.
Competitors such as London, New York, Tokyo and Singapore have begun to live with the disease with face-to-face meetings, conferences and executive travel slowly returning.
But Hong Kong, which dubs itself “Asia’s World City”, has gone in the opposite direction.
And earlier this week officials further tightened the rules to try to secure a travel bubble with the mainland, even as China experiences its fourth outbreak in the past five months.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said restoring travel to the mainland is “more important” than reopening internationally and that the city needs to be even stricter than authorities north of the border to win Beijing’s trust.
That choice has sparked alarm as executives find themselves increasingly struggling to retain talent and replace those that are leaving.
AFP spoke to six senior managers at international companies to gauge whether – as one banking lobby group warned last week – Hong Kong’s long-term viability as a business hub is at risk.
All asked to remain anonymous so they could speak candidly, and painted a similar picture.
“Everyone I talk to expects there will definitely be no quarantine lift until after the Winter Olympics (in February) and also perhaps not until Xi Jinping gets himself re-elected,” James, an Australian banker who has spent 30 years in Hong Kong, told AFP.
China’s leaders will hold a gathering in October at which President Xi is expected to secure a third term and there are growing expectations that Beijing will not risk a reopening of the borders until that sensitive date has passed.
Frequent farewell parties and a sudden drop in waiting lists for international schools, James said, pointed to a small but steady exodus of foreign white-collar workers from Hong Kong “especially those with families”.
A managing director at a global investment bank who gave his name as John said he had spent 49 days in quarantine over the past 15 months and was now considering moving to either Singapore or London.
“We have staff every month relocating,” he said, adding it felt like Hong Kong’s government was putting “all the marbles … in one basket” by prioritising travel with China over the rest of the world.
And Philippe, who works at a global consultancy firm, described how a major competitor recently held a gathering of all regional heads in London.
“They all went except their guy based in Hong Kong,” he told AFP.
Among the stricter rules Hong Kong announced were an end to quarantine exemptions, and a further 14 days in quarantine for recovered Covid patients.
The new rules are the latest to fuel suspicions in Hong Kong that the pandemic is being used to keep the population down after democracy protests two years ago and a subsequent crackdown on dissent.
At present, 240 people can attend an indoor wedding banquet but more than four people eating sandwiches together in a park remains banned.
One American who works for an asset management firm said his family had to undergo mandatory quarantine when someone in his building tested positive.
He said he had gone from being an optimist at the beginning of the pandemic to a “deep pessimist”.
“Covid policy clearly overlaps with a lot of other political objectives,” he told AFP.
Asked what another year of restrictions might do to business, he replied: “It’s just unsustainable.”
CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON ‘SERIOUS’ OUTBREAK
Beijing introduced new Covid-19 curbs on Saturday, local time to stamp out a “serious” outbreak as the Chinese capital maintains its strict zero-tolerance policy, with less than 100 days before it hosts the Winter Olympics.
China’s leading epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said that authorities could contain a nationwide outbreak within a month — but also warned the “pandemic cannot be eradicated within a short period of time”.
The outbreak has hit at least 14 of China’s provinces and millions have been tested in the past week.
The situation is “serious and complex” and the epidemic “is still developing rapidly”, Mi Feng, spokesman for the National Health Commission, told a press conference on Saturday.
In Beijing, authorities ordered all cinemas closed until 14 November in the capital’s Xicheng district, which lies west of Tiananmen Square and is home to over a million people.
China announced 59 locally transmitted virus cases on Saturday — the highest since mid-September — including two cases in Beijing linked to a tourist group infected in the north of the country.
While the number is low compared to daily case counts in other countries, authorities are pushing Beijing to contain the virus ahead of the Games, which begin on 4 February.
The city — which hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008 — will become the first to host both events.
The new centre of the outbreak is 650 kilometres from Beijing, in the city of Erenhot, on the border with Mongolia.
Some six million Chinese people in cities where the virus has been detected are now under travel restrictions.
The country’s nationwide train operator will suspend or limit routes in affected areas, state news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
Entry into numerous regions is now conditional on a negative test result — particularly for those coming from affected areas.
Friday saw around half of flights leaving Beijing’s capital cancelled, with authorities urging people not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary. They also asked Beijingers to postpone their weddings.
It comes as Beijing city demanded vaccine booster shots for some key workers, making it the first key Chinese metropolis to publicly articulate a booster mandate.
Having vaccinated about 76 per cent of its 1.41 billion population with complete doses, China is pushing eligible people to get an additional injection, in a bid to strengthen immunity.
Key workers for construction sites, including cooks, security guards and cleaning personnel, can only be hired if they have received a booster dose, Ding Sheng, vice director at Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said on Thursday.
TONGA FACES LOCKDOWN AS FIRST CASE DETECTED
Tongans flocked to vaccination centres on Saturday after the government warned the main island Tongatapu might be plunged into lockdown next week after recording its first case of Covid-19.
The infected person was among 215 people on a repatriation flight from the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
A routine test on arrival on Thursday, while in compulsory managed isolation, returned a positive result the following day.
Prime Minister Pohiva Tuionetoa warned islanders on Saturday to prepare for the possibility of a lockdown if more cases emerge but said there was no need for immediate action as it could take “more than three days” before a person with the virus becomes contagious.
“We should use this time to get ready in case more people are confirmed they have the virus,” he said.
The tiny Pacific kingdom, about 1,800 kilometres northeast of New Zealand, had been among only a handful of countries to escape the virus that has affected billions worldwide and claimed nearly five million lives.
Only about a third of Tonga’s population of 106,000, most of whom live on Tongatapu, have been double vaccinated against Covid-19.
But news that the first case had been detected in managed isolation prompted thousands to rush to get vaccinated.
“We’ve been to the community several times but only a few come to the site but yesterday and today was really good, really full, very best,” Tonga’s national immunisation co-ordinator Afu Tei said. “Almost 2,000 last night and today you can see the turnout is very good.”
Health officials confirmed the infected Tongan had been double vaccinated, having received the second jab in mid-October.
Tonga health ministry chief executive Siale Akau’ola said that although it would be another two weeks before the second vaccination was fully effective, “we believe the person would not get seriously ill and reach a dangerous level.”
All health workers, police and airport staff who were on duty when the flight arrived have been put into quarantine as a precaution, Akau’ola said.
New Zealand’s health ministry confirmed the infected person had tested negative before the flight left Christchurch, where there are only four known cases of Covid, all of them in the same household.
The repatriation flight included members of Tonga’s Olympic team who had been stranded in Christchurch since the Tokyo Games.
The athletes were double vaccinated before they departed for the Olympics.
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