09-02-2021

TueSDAY, FeBruArY 9, 2021
7
In this Nov. 30, 2020 file photo, volunteers wait to be checked at a vaccine trial facility set at Soweto's
Chris Sani Baragwanath Hospital outside Johannesburg, South Africa. South Africa suspended plans
Sunday Feb. 7, 2021 to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine after a
small clinical trial suggested that it isn't effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant
dominant in the country.
Photo : AP
South Africa suspends Astra
Zeneca vaccine drive
JOHANNESBURG : South Africa has
suspended plans to inoculate its frontline
health care workers with the
Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a
small clinical trial suggested that it isn't
effective in preventing mild to moderate
illness from the variant dominant in
the country.
South Africa received its first 1 million
doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine
last week and was expected to begin
giving jabs to health care workers in
mid-February. The disappointing early
results indicate that an inoculation
drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine
may not be useful, reports UNB.
Preliminary data from a small study
suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine
offers only "minimal protection against
mild-moderate disease" caused by the
variant in South Africa. The variant
appears more infectious and is driving
a deadly resurgence of the disease in
the country, currently accounting for
more than 90% of the COVID-19 cases,
health minister Zweli Mkhize said
Sunday night.
"The AstraZeneca vaccine appeared
effective against the original strain, but
not against the variant," Mkhize said.
"We have decided to put a temporary
hold on the rollout of the vaccine ...
more work needs to be done."
The study, which hasn't yet been
peer-reviewed, involved 2,000 people,
most of whom were young and healthy.
The volunteers' average age was 31.
Death toll from India's
glacier tragedy rises to
14, over 200 missing
NEW DELHI : The death
toll in Sunday's glacier
burst in north India has
risen to 14, even as the
number of missing persons
swelled to over 200, confirmed
official sources on
Monday.
The natural disaster hit
the country's northern hilly
state of Uttarakhand on
Sunday morning, severely
damaging two hydro power
projects.
Among the missing persons
are 11 local villagers
and around 190 workers
employed at two power
projects.
"Most of the missing
persons are said to be
labourers hailing from the
eastern state of Bihar and
northern state of Uttar
Pradesh," the India Today
media group quoted
Uttarakhand Director
General of Police (DGP)
Ashok Kumar as saying.
According to Kumar, the
rescue work is focussed on a
1,800-meter long tunnel
where around 35 to 40 people,
mostly power project
labourers, are feared
trapped. The tunnel is said
to be filled with several feet
high slush and debris.
Meanwhile, according to
sources at the local disaster
management office, 13 villages
have been cut off due
to the natural disaster, and
efforts are being made to
reach out to them with food
and medical aid.
"Protection against moderate-severe
disease, hospitalization or death could
not be assessed in this study as the target
population were at such low risk,"
said a statement issued by Oxford
University and the University of the
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Scientists will be studying whether or
not the AstraZeneca vaccine is effective
in preventing severe disease and death
against the variant, Mkhize said.
Other vaccines have shown reduced
efficacy against the variant, but have
provided good protection from serious
disease and death.
Public health officials are concerned
about the South Africa variant because
it contains a mutation of the virus'
characteristic spike protein, which is
targeted by existing vaccines. South
African officials say the variant is more
contagious and evidence is emerging
that it may be more virulent.
South Africa will urgently roll out
other vaccines to inoculate as many as
possible in the coming months, Mkhize
said. Other South African scientists on
Sunday said the clinical trials for the
Johnson and Johnson vaccine show
good results against the variant.
The early results for the AstraZeneca
vaccine against the variant could have
far-reaching implications as many
other countries in Africa and beyond
have been planning to use the
AstraZeneca shot. The international
COVAX initiative has bought the
AstraZeneca vaccine in bulk from the
Serum Institute of India.
Developers of the Oxford-
AstraZeneca vaccine expect to have a
modified jab to cope with the South
Africa coronavirus variant by autumn,
the vaccine's lead researcher said
Sunday.
Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher for the
Oxford team, told the BBC on Sunday
that "we have a version with the South
African spike sequence in the works."
"It looks very likely that we can have
a new version ready to use in the
autumn," she added.
Authorities in England last week
went house-to-house to administer
COVID-19 testing in eight areas where
the South Africa variant is believed to
be spreading, after a handful of cases
were found in people who had no contact
with the country or anyone who
traveled there.
More than 100 cases of the South
African variant have been found in the
U.K. The testing blitz is a bid to snuff
out the variant before it spreads widely
and undermines the U.K.'s vaccination
rollout.
Britain has seen Europe's deadliest
coronavirus outbreak, with over
112,000 confirmed deaths, but it has
embarked on a speedier vaccination
plan than the neighboring European
Union. So far, the U.K. has given a first
coronavirus vaccine jab to about 11.5
million people.
Week after military coup, protests
swell rapidly in Myanmar
YANGON : A protest against Myanmar's oneweek-old
military government swelled rapidly
Monday morning as opposition to the coup
grew increasingly bold, reports UNB.
The protesters at a major downtown
Yangon intersection chanted slogans, raised a
three-finger salute and carried placards saying
"Reject the military coup" and "Justice for
Myanmar." Starting with a few hundred people,
the crowd exceeded a thousand by midmorning
and cars passing by honked their
horns in solidarity.
Some smaller groups broke off from the
main protest and headed to the Sule Pagoda,
a past rallying point for major protests
against previous ruling juntas. Monday's
action followed a protest Sunday involving
tens of thousands of people demonstrating to
demand the release of deposed leader Aung
San Suu Kyi and other top figures from her
National League for Democracy party.
The growing protests are a sharp reminder
of the long and bloody struggle for democracy
in a country that the military ruled directly
for more than five decades before loosening
its grip in 2012. Suu Kyi's government, which
won a landslide election in 2015, was the first
led by civilians in decades, though its power
was limited by a military-drafted constitution.
During Myanmar's years of isolation
under military rule, the golden-domed Sule
Pagoda served as a rallying point for political
protests calling for democracy, most notably
in during a massive 1988 uprising and again
during a 2007 revolt led by Buddhist monks.
The military used deadly force to end both
of those uprisings, with estimates of hundreds
if not thousands killed in 1988. While
riot police have watched the protests this past
week, soldiers have been absent and there
have been no reports of clashes. Several
videos posted online Sunday that were said to
be from the town of Myawaddy, on
Myanmar's eastern border with Thailand,
showed police shooting into the air in an evident
effort to disperse a crowd.
The death toll in Sunday's glacier burst in north India has risen to 14, even
as the number of missing persons swelled to over 200, confirmed official
sources on Monday.
Photo : AP
The Latest: China's
northeast outbreaks
appear under control
BEIJING : China appears to
have stamped out its latest
coronavirus outbreaks centered
on the northeast,
reporting no new cases of
local infection in its latest
daily report.
The National Health
Commission said Monday
that 14 newly confirmed
cases had been brought from
outside the country but no
new cases were registered in
the provinces of
Heilongjiang and Jilin that
have seen China's latest clusters.
While China has relaxed
some social distancing rules,
extensive testing, electronic
monitoring and periodic
lockdowns remain in place.
The country has reported
4,636 deaths among almost
90,000 cases since the coronavirus
was first detected in
the central Chinese city of
Wuhan in December 2019.
The UK's aggressive vaccine
gambles have paid off,
while EU caution is slowing
down its vaccination program.
The West African
country of Burkina Faso,
which at first managed to
avoid a catastrophic surge of
the coronavirus, is now trying
to cope with a much
deadlier resurgence.
Biden foresees 'extreme
competition' with
China, not 'conflict'
WASHINGTON : President
Joe Biden anticipates the
US rivalry with China will
take the form of "extreme
competition" rather than
conflict between the two
world powers.
Biden said in an excerpt of
a CBS interview aired
Sunday that he has not spoken
with Chinese counterpart
Xi Jinping since he
became US president.
"He's very tough. He doesn't
have - and I don't mean it
as a criticism, just the reality
- he doesn't have a democratic,
small D, bone in his
body," Biden said.
"I've said to him all along,
that we need not have a conflict.
But there's going to be
extreme competition,"
Biden said.
"I'm not going to do it the
way (Donald) Trump did.
We're going to focus on
international rules of the
road."
China is considered in
Washington as the United
States' number one strategic
adversary, and the primary
challenge on the world
stage.
Trump had chosen open
confrontation and verbal
attacks, without serious tangible
results for the enormous
US trade deficit with
China.
Palestinians launch
postcodes in assertion
of sovereignty
RAMALLAH : The
Palestinian Authority
announced Sunday it would
begin using its own postal
codes, a move at easing the
delivery of parcels in the
occupied territories as well
as asserting sovereignty.
International mail sent to
or from the occupied West
Bank currently has to pass
through Jordan or Israel.
But the PA said Sunday it
had asked the Universal
Postal Union to notify its
member states that
Palestinian postal codes
were coming into force.
"From April, postal items
that do not bear a
Palestinian postal code will
not be processed,"
Palestinian Minister of
Communications Ishaq
Sidr told reporters in
Ramallah, the West Bank
headquarters of the
Palestinian Authority.
"It is a question of asserting
Palestinian rights," he
said.
Palestinian postal codes
would also help put an end
to the seizure of shipments
from abroad, Sidr said.
UK vaccine gambles paid off, while
EU caution slowed it down
SAINT-HERBLAIN : French pharmaceutical
startup Valneva had big news in
September: a government contract for 60
million doses of its coronavirus vaccine
candidate.
The buyer? The United Kingdom - not
the European Union, as might be expected
for a company on the banks of the Loire,
reports UNB.
"What a true waste," bristled Christelle
Morancais, president of the Pays de la
Loire regional council, as she tried to wrap
her head around the missed opportunity.
The British, she told The Associated Press,
"rolled out the red carpet for this company,
helping with financing and the set-up. ...
And we were powerless."
The U.K. has now ordered another 40
million doses and has options for more
from Valneva, which has a plant in
Scotland. The EU is still in talks with the
company.
That pattern of Britain investing aggressively
and early while the EU takes a slower,
more cautious approach has been the
hallmark of the vaccine race in Europe -
and offers a window into problems that
have dogged the vaccination rollout by the
world's biggest trading bloc.
As with other countries that moved
quickly, negotiating contracts earlier has
helped Britain avoid some of the vaccine
supply problems the 27-nation EU has
faced - as when AstraZeneca said it hit a
production issue. Valneva President
Franck Grimaud told the AP that Britain
will receive vaccine doses earlier because it
signed first.
But the U.K. has also shown speed and
agility in other areas: Its regulatory agency
has authorized vaccines more quickly than
the EU's, and its government has experimented
with stretching out the time
between shots - allowing it to roll out first
doses faster so more people can have some
protection quickly.
The EU has been more cautious on both
counts. While bloc is still getting and distributing
vaccine - unlike much of the
world - it has so far been left in the U.K.'s
rearview mirror. Britain has given at least
one shot to about 15% of its population,
compared to some 3% in the bloc. This is
not only a matter of pride: The EU has
already lost more than 490,000 out of its
450 million people to the pandemic,
according to Johns Hopkins University,
and uncounted others who were not tested
before they died.
Diane Wanten, from Alken, Belgium,
survived a bout with COVID-19 that put
her in intensive care last spring. The 62-
year-old now badly hopes for shots for herself
and her husband Francesco, who has
Parkinson's. "If there is a vaccine for me
tomorrow, I'll be in line," she said.
Instead, "it is Britain which is towering
head and shoulders above the rest,"
Wanten said. "I keep asking myself why
things are possible there and not here in
Belgium?"
Britain has its own struggles: a death toll
of 112,000 in a country of 67 million and
plenty who say the Conservative government
should have moved faster to fight the
virus. Still, it celebrated the Valneva contract
as validation of its vaccine strategy -
and its decision to leave the EU.
French pharmaceutical startup Valneva had big news in September: a
government contract for 60 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine
candidate.
Photo : AP
Gunmen kill 19 in village
raids on northwest Nigeria
KANO, Nigeria : Nineteen people were killed
at the weekend when armed men raided two
villages in northwest Nigeria's Kaduna state,
the government said, in the latest violence to
hit the region.
Gunmen from kidnapping and cattle
rustling gangs - called bandits by locals - often
raid villages in northwest Nigeria, stealing cattle,
kidnapping for ransom and burning
homes after looting supplies.
"Kaduna State Government has received
reports from security agencies of the killing of
19 citizens in Birnin Gwari and Kajuru local
government areas," Samuel Aruwan, internal
affairs commissioner said in a statement.
"The citizens were killed by armed bandits
at Kutemeshi village in Birnin Gwari and
Kujeni village in Kajuru, where several others
were left with bullet wounds," Aruwan said.
Late on Saturday, bandits riding on motorcycles
killed 14 people and injured others
when they invaded Kutemeshi where they
looted shops, the official said.
On the same day motorbike-riding gunmen
also stormed Kujeni where they killed five
people and burnt "several" houses, warehouses
and a church, said Aruwan in the statement.
But residents said 19 people were killed just
in the raid in Kutemeshi.
"We lost 19 people in the attack. We buried
them yesterday (Sunday)," said Kutemeshi
resident Ayuba Abdullahi.
Last month bandits killed 12 people and kidnapped
30 others in attacks on three villages in
Birnin Gwari district and neighbouring
Katsina state.
Kidnapping and cattle rustling gangs maintain
camps in the Rugu forest straddling
Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Niger states.
The gangs have no ideological leanings but
there are concerns that the gangs may be gradually
infiltrated by jihadists from the northeast.
Violence across the northwest has killed
8,000 people since 2011 and displaced more
than 200,000, some into neighbouring Niger,
according to a report last year by the
International Crisis Group (ICG).
In Iran standoff, Biden says US
won't unilaterally lift sanctions
WASHINGTON : US President Joe Biden has
made clear he will not unilaterally lift sanctions
against Iran, saying it must first adhere to its
nuclear deal commitments despite demands
on Sunday from the Islamic Republic's
supreme leader.
The exchange underscored the thorny diplomatic
challenge ahead as Biden seeks to revive
- without showing weakness - a key accord
rejected by his predecessor Donald Trump.
Asked in a CBS interview airing Sunday
whether he would halt sanctions to convince
Iran to return to the bargaining table, Biden
offered a clear reply: "No."
The journalist then asked if the Iranians
would first have to stop enriching uranium,
which drew an affirmative nod from Biden.
The clip was part of a longer interview to be
aired later Sunday on CBS.
The landmark deal was reached in 2015 by
the United States and other powers (China,
Russia, Germany, France and Britain) following
long negotiations with Iran aimed at preventing
it from developing nuclear weapons.
The deal has been hanging by a thread since
Trump's decision to withdraw from it in 2018
and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.
Trump argued that the accord did not sufficiently
restrict Iran's nuclear program and he
complained of its "destabilizing" activities in
the region.
Trump resumed the US sanctions on Tehran
that had been lifted through the accord, and he
pressed reluctant allies to do the same. Tehran
a year later suspended its compliance with
most key nuclear commitments.
The Biden administration has expressed
willingness to return to the deal, but insisted
that Tehran first resume full compliance.
On January 4, Iran announced it has stepped
up its uranium enrichment process to 20 percent
purity, far above the 3.67 percent level
permitted by the deal, but far below the
amount required for an atomic bomb.