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Countries across Asia open borders post-COVID

After two-and-a-half years of tight pandemic controls, some of Asia’s last holdouts are opening their borders, as they move to bolster their economies and play catch-up with a world that has largely learned to live with COVID. Hong Kong said on Friday that it would abandon mandatory hotel quarantine for people coming to the city starting next week, …

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A new generation of inhaled COVID vaccines

A new generation of COVID-19 vaccines that can be inhaled or sprayed up the nose—instead of taken by injection—will begin rolling out in Asia, though just how effective they are remains to be seen. Regulators in China and India have greenlighted distribution of vaccines delivered through the mouth or nose, a delivery that scientists say …

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Nigeria to build new vaccine plant

Nigeria will start building a vaccine plant by end of the year after signing a contract manufacturing agreement with the Serum Institute of India for local production of the jabs, the country’s health minister said. The country struck the deal with the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer on Wednesday, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said at a …

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Two COVID-19 antibody therapies are no longer recommended by the WHO

Two COVID-19 antibody therapies are no longer recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), on the basis that Omicron and the variant’s latest offshoots have likely rendered them obsolete. www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-strongly-advises-against-use-two-covid-treatments-2022-09-15/? The two therapies – which are designed to work by binding to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to neutralise the virus’ ability to infect cells …

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Historical precedents for poxvirus mutation

A few years ago, researchers scoured the remains of 1867 people who lived between 30,000 and 150 years ago for genetic traces of variola, the virus that causes smallpox. In the teeth and bones of four Northern Europeans from the Viking era, they found enough DNA to reconstruct entire variola genomes. The sequenced viruses weren’t …

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COVID-19 deaths lowest recorded since March 2020

World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said: “Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 was the lowest since March 2020. We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic.” But the WHO chief also warned that if the world does not seize the opportunity now, …

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Yet another COVID variant – Omicron BA.4.6

Another new COVID variant is spreading – here’s what we know about omicron BA.4.6 BA.4.6, a subvariant of the omicron COVID variant which has been quickly gaining traction in the US, is now confirmed to be spreading in the UK. The latest briefing document on COVID variants from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) noted …

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