The World Health Organisation (WHO) supports releasing a COVID-19 vaccine patent in order to speed up production of vaccines, Greece’s main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras has said.
The leftist politician from Syriza party (GUE-NGL) held a telephone conversation on Sunday (31 January) with WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, who agreed with Tsipras’ initiative to release patents of COVID-19 vaccines to scale up production.
“Dr. Tedros Adhanom stressed that he supports Syriza’s initiative to secure patents and create a pool of patents, in order to have greater and faster production of vaccines by as many pharmaceutical companies as possible,” the leftist party said in a statement.
A preliminary trial of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine suggests that a two-dose regimen of the vaccine offers 91.6% efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19, according to findings published on Tuesday (2 February). At the same time, the European Commission confirmed it does not rule out a deal for the vaccine.
The preliminary findings, published in The Lancet, are based on an analysis of Phase 3 trial data from nearly 20,000 participants, three-quarters of whom received the vaccine and one-quarter received a placebo.
It found that the vaccine induced an antibody and cellular immune response with data from 342 and 44 participants, respectively.
No serious adverse events were deemed to be associated with vaccination, and most reported adverse events were mild, including flu-like symptoms, pain at the injection site and weakness or low energy.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides have “completely failed” in the way they handled the COVID-19 vaccine contracts with the pharmaceutical industry, MEP Dimitris Papadimoulis has said.
Europe should move away from a donor-recipient relationship with Africa and cooperate as equals instead, EU lawmakers have said in a new report adopted on Thursday (28 January).
“Europe and Africa need each other; a new and equal partnership must reflect this,” said Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, a French centrist MEP who drafted the Parliament’s report, which was adopted by a 20 to 3 majority.
In its report on a new EU–Africa partnership, the European Parliament’s development committee called for substantial funds to be earmarked in the upcoming budget designed to support the EU’s foreign policy.
The EU’s €70.8 billion Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument for 2021-2027 (NDICI) is intended to support sustainable development in Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Pacific and the Caribbean.
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