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    Tuesday, May 25, 2021

    Moderna Says COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Highly Effective’ In Adolescents

    US biotech firm Moderna said that trials had shown its Covid-19 vaccine is "highly effective" in adolescents aged 12-17 and the company would seek regulators' approval in June.

    "We are encouraged that mRNA-1273 was highly effective at preventing Covid-19 in adolescents," CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.

    "We will submit these results to the US FDA and regulators globally in early June and request authorisation."

    If approved, as expected, it would be the second Covid vaccine authorised for use in US adolescents after Pfizer's, which began rolling out this month for 12 to 15-year-olds.

    The Moderna study enrolled 3,732 adolescents aged 12 to 17 and randomised, with two-thirds receiving the two doses of the vaccine and the rest receiving a placebo.

    After two doses, no cases of symptomatic Covid-19 were observed in the vaccine group compared to four cases in the placebo group, meaning the shots were 100% effective.

    Adolescents are less likely than adults to contract the illness.

    Therefore, the study also examined efficacy according to a more stringent definition of Covid, which requires just one symptom in addition to a positive test.

    Under this definition, the vaccine was 93% effective after the first dose.

    The vaccine, called mRNA-1273, was generally well tolerated, consistent with what has been observed in adults, with no significant safety concerns.

    The majority of side effects were mild or moderate and included injection site pain, headache, fatigue, muscle ache and chills.

    Although adolescents are much less susceptible to severe Covid than adults, experts believe they are important to reach in order to help achieve population immunity against the disease.

    The US has reached almost 50% of its population of 332 million with at least one dose, but its vaccination campaign is slowing in the face of hesitancy.

    President Joe Biden has set a target of having 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose by 4 July. The current figure is almost 62%.

    Poland dangles lottery jackpot to boost vaccination drive

    Poland will launch a lottery with prizes of as much as 1 million zlotys (€250,000) to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

    The minister in charge of the immunisation programme said that although 69% of Poles have declared they want to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, the biggest challenge was making sure they do it.

    "We are carrying out another advertising campaign ... we have sports people involved, we have actors involved, influencers involved," Michal Dworczyk told a news conference.

    "Alongside these traditional forms ... we are adding this extra proposal."

    The competition will be run with the aid of state-owned companies and lottery operator Totalizator Sportowy.

    Every 2,000th person taking part in the lottery will win 500 zlotys, with two participants winning one million zlotys and a hybrid car.

    Municipalities will also be encouraged to compete to get the highest vaccination rates, with the first 500 to reach a rate of 75% being awarded 100,000 zlotys.

    The vaccination lottery follows a competition in June which offered fire engines to small municipalities that registered high turnout in the 2020 presidential election.

    This initiative met with criticism from opposition politicians, who called it thinly veiled vote-buying.

    Masks, restrictions return to Melbourne after new virus outbreak

    Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, reinstated Covid-19 restrictions as authorities scrambled to find the missing link in a fresh outbreak, prompting New Zealand to pause a "travel bubble" with the state of Victoria.

    Amid worries the cluster, which has grown to nine cases in two days, could spark a major outbreak, Victoria imposed social restrictions and made face masks mandatory in hotels, restaurants, and other indoor venues from 6pm local time until 4 June.

    The latest outbreak ends Victoria's run of zero cases for nearly three months and saw New Zealand suspend quarantine-free travel with the state and the neighbouring state of South Australia impose travel restrictions.

    Australia has avoided the high Covid-19 numbers seen in many developed countries by closing its international borders in the early stages of the pandemic and with lockdowns.

    It has reported just over 30,000 cases and 910 deaths.

    Thousands of people in Melbourne have been ordered to self-isolate and undergo Covid-19 tests with health alerts issued for several sites, including one of the largest shopping centres in the country.

    One of the cases had a high viral load while he visited some venues, prompting authorities to warn Melbourne's five million residents to brace for more positive cases in the next few days.

    Authorities urged Victorians to get vaccinated.

    "There are right now millions of Victorians that are eligible to be vaccinated. They shouldn't wait for tomorrow, they shouldn't wait for next week. They should move now and get vaccinated," James Merlino, Victoria state's acting premier, told reporters in Melbourne.

    Victoria was the hardest-hit state during a second wave late last year, accounting for about 70% of total cases and 90% of deaths in Australia.

    The state, the country's second most populous, only controlled the outbreak after one of the world's longest and strictest lockdowns.

    Five new locally acquired cases were reported in Victoria today, a day after four infections were recorded in Melbourne.

    All cases belong to one extended family across different households and could be traced back to the variant found in an overseas traveller who returned to Melbourne early this month after completing quarantine in the city of Adelaide.

    Authorities, however, said they could not yet find how the latest cases contracted the virus from the overseas traveller.

    Hong Kong could soon bin millions of unused vaccine doses

    Hong Kong may soon have to throw away millions of coronavirus vaccine doses because they are approaching their expiry date and not enough people have signed up for the jabs, an official has warned.

    Hong Kong has secured more than enough doses to inoculate its entire population of 7.5 million people.

    But distrust of the government as it stamps out dissent, combined with online misinformation and a lack of urgency in the comparatively virus-free city, has led to vaccine hesitancy and a dismal inoculation drive.

    A member of the government's vaccine task force warned that Hong Kongers "only have a three-month window" before the city's first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines go out of date.

    "The vaccines all have expiry dates," Thomas Tsang, a former controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told RTHK radio.

    "They cannot be used after the expiry date and the community vaccination centres for BioNTech will, according to present plans, cease operating after September."

    Mr Tsang said it was "just not right" that Hong Kong was sitting on an unused pile of doses while the rest of the world "is scrambling for vaccines".

    And he warned new doses were unlikely to be delivered.

    "What we have is probably all we have for the rest of the year," he said.

    Hong Kong bought 7.5 million doses each of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and China's Sinovac.

    The latter has yet to be approved by the World Health Organization but was fast-tracked for use by city health regulators.

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