The XBB.1.5 mutant continued to spread in a number of countries in the world, raising greater concern about whether it would exacerbate the global health crisis caused by the new coronavirus infection. WHO infectious disease control consultant Dr. Maria Van Kerkhov said that this variant of the Omicron strain is the fastest spreading of all strains and mutants. She explained that it is the fastest spreading virus because its genetic mutations allow it to stick to cells and reproduce itself easily. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had estimated that the XBB and XBB.1.5 strains accounted for 44.1% of COVID-19 infections in the United States during the week ending December 29, 2022. And it indicated that the percentage did not exceed 25.9% during the week preceding. The World Health Organization reported that the XBB.1.5 mutant has been confirmed in 28 other countries. And the US Centers for Disease Control and Control (Friday) decided to reconsider its previous assessment of the extent of the dominance of this mutant. And she said, in a statement, that XBB.1.5 accounted for 27.6% of new infections in America during the week ending January 7, compared to 18.3% during the week ending December 31, 2022. Despite this downward revision; The XBB.1.5 variant is the fastest growing Omicron variant in the United States. It is second only to the BQ.1.1 mutant, which currently accounts for 34% of new infections there. XBB.1.5 accounts for more than 70% of new infections in the northeastern states of the United States. The coordinator of global epidemic control at the White House, Dr. Ashish Jha, warned that XBB. Dr. Jha said that those who were vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine in September 2022, and those who were infected with the virus before July 2022, have little immunity to XBB.1.5. He added that health officials will very soon have data that will make it clear whether the vaccine dose updated to target the Omicron strain is able to provide adequate protection against XBB.1.5. However, FDA Director Dr. Robert Calif said data from studies on mutants belonging to the same viral family, particularly XBB and XBB.1, indicated that they should provide some measure of protection against XBB.1.5. However, scientists at Columbia University in the United States indicated, in a recent study, that mutants belonging to the XBB family pose a real threat to the effectiveness of updated doses of Covid-19 vaccines. And data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that new weekly infections in the United States increased during the past week by 16%, to reach 470,699 new infections during the past week. This was accompanied by a 16% increase in the number of people admitted to hospitals. This was accompanied by an increase in the number of weekly deaths by about 8%, to exceed 2,700 deaths during the past week.
The World Health Organization says it has no data on how dangerous XBB.1.5 is to the health of those it infects, and that it has seen nothing to confirm that it has mutated further since its discovery. But its ability to spread rapidly is cause for concern. Van Kerkhove stated that she expects more outbreaks around the world, "but this should not be interpreted as causing more waves of deaths, because anti-virus measures are continuing," referring to the prevalence of Covid-19 vaccines.
In the latest development in the health crisis that has exacerbated in China, following its government’s decision on December 7, 2022 to cancel the measures of the “Zero Covid” strategy, “Reuters” quoted two sources as saying that the Chinese government is in talks with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer to obtain a license from it that allows pharmaceutical companies A tray manufacturing and distributing Pfizer's drug Paxlovid to treat COVID-19. The two sources revealed that the Chinese National Administration for Medical Equipment has been conducting these talks with Pfizer since late December 2022. A source added that China is keen to conclude an agreement in this regard before the Chinese Lunar New Year on January 22. The worsening health crisis in China has put intense pressure on hospitals and health centers. It also led to the depletion of medicines from the shelves of pharmacies. And the demand for the drug Paxlovid increased sharply, whose trial data showed that it reduced the chances of patients being put to sleep by up to 90%. China approved Paxlovid in February 2022.
Britain: clinical trials of a cancer vaccine
Britain is set to start a clinical trial of a cancer vaccine this year, after the government signed an agreement in this regard with the German company BioNTech, which is behind the development of the Pfizer vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Britain was the first country in the world to approve the use of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 in 2020. The Daily Telegraph newspaper stated yesterday that a laboratory of about 70 scientists will be established in Cambridge to launch research on a successful vaccine against cancer. Biontech will also establish an office for the company in London under the aforementioned agreement. Biontech targets technology that has been associated with several cancers, especially breast, lung, and pancreatic cancer. Biontech is also looking to use the same technology to find a vaccine against malaria and tuberculosis. The newspaper indicated that if the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine is confirmed, Biontech will give Britain 10,000 doses by 2030. The agreement with Biontech comes about a month after Britain signed an agreement with the American pharmaceutical company Moderna to manufacture its anti-Covid-19 vaccine in British territory. The founder of Biontech, its CEO, Professor Ugur Shaheen, said that Britain's embrace of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine is the reason why Biontech is encouraged to conduct its clinical trials in Britain. He added that cooperation between Britain and BioNTech will benefit hundreds of millions of people who suffer from cancer and other infectious diseases.
In another context; The Chinese company CanSino Biologics announced yesterday, in Hong Kong and London, that a clinical trial has provided "positive" data for an activating dose of an anti-Covid-19 vaccine made by the company using messenger RNA technology. The company said, in a letter to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that its experiment included 433 people over the age of 18, who had previously received 3 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine based on traditional technology that used part of a dead virus. China has approved the use of 9 Chinese vaccines based on traditional vaccine technology. Cansino stated that the volunteers to try its new vaccine had 27 times more antibodies to COVID-19 than those immunized with conventional vaccines against the original strain of the virus that appeared in Wuhan at the end of 2019, and 23 times more against the Omicron BA.1 strain. On the other hand; Geron Pharmaceutical Company announced that an advanced stage of a clinical trial it conducted on a drug it created to treat leukemia helped patients to abandon the usual blood transfusions in attempts to treat leukemia. Produced by Bristol Myers Squibb. Geron said it expects this drug to generate $1.2 billion in the United States and major countries in the European Union by 2030.
Okaz (London, Washington) Agencies (Beijing) @OKAZ_online Yassin Ahmed (London) @OKAZ_online