Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
As the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) settled several court applications on Tuesday 6 April to provide wider access to ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19, the country’s infectious disease specialists insisted that this was not the right way to do it.
Despite battling through two brutal waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, South Africa’s frontline doctors, all infectious disease specialists, were among a group of esteemed medical experts who told the court that it was not in the public interest to allow broad access to ivermectin through legal action, insisting that evidence of the drug’s efficacy and safety were still lacking.
Doctors say COVID vaccine should be tested on pregnant women
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A demand by Australian womenâs health experts that pregnant and breastfeeding women be included in clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines was ignored, and doctors say leaving them out is discriminatory.
Representatives of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Breastfeeding Association of Australia, and midwifery expert associate professor Karleen Gribble said pregnant women should have been allowed to volunteer for vaccine trials and the fact they were not means âmany more women are at riskâ.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women were not included in vaccine trials for COVID-19 but some womenâs health experts argue it was discriminatory not to have included them.
Moderna gets emergency use authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine in US
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Moderna has become the second company to get emergency use authorisation for its anti-coronavirus vaccine from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a week after the one developed by Pfizer received a similar approval.
According to an official statement, the FDA has determined that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has met the statutory criteria for issuance of an emergency use authorisation (EUA). Congratulations, the Moderna vaccine is now available! President Donald Trump tweeted soon after.
The FDA based its recommendation on the totality of scientific evidence shared by Moderna, including a data analysis from the pivotal phase three clinical study announced on November 30. The primary efficacy analysis conducted on 196 cases indicated a vaccine efficacy rate of 94.1 per cent.