Sites set for to vaccinate the Kuwaitis and expats from coronavirus

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AstraZeneca vaccine safe, effective

KUWAIT CITY, Dec 8, (Agencies): The government has shown a tendency to allocate three sites to vaccinate the Kuwaitis and expats to protect them from the COVID-19 pandemic when the vaccine arrives in the country, which is expected to be soon, reports Al-Anba daily quoting reliable health sources.

The same sources said two of the three allocated sites will be the Ahmadi and the Jahra governorates to serve the residents of those areas, in addition to the residents of the Mubarak Al-Kabeer governorate, while the third main site will be at the Mishref Fairground and will serve the governorates of Hawalli, Capital and Farwaniya.

The sources pointed out the vaccination will be distributed ‘free’ and is ‘optional’. However, those who want to avail the facility will have to opt for e-reservation to avoid crowding.

The sources indicated that priority will be given to the elderly, people with chronic diseases and groups most vulnerable to infection, such as healthcare providers, frontrow workers and basic service providers, noting that the vaccination will be in two doses, spread over 21 days.

The sources indicated that the Public Authority for Civil Information is currently counting and collecting data for people according to age groups from 18 to 55 years and from 56 years and over in all governorates of the country, and it will provide this information to the committee to prepare and implement the appropriate mechanism for vaccination as per the Council of Ministers guidelines.

Vaccine
New results on a possible COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University and Astra- Zeneca suggest it is safe and about 70 percent effective, but questions remain about how well it may help protect those over 55 – a key concern for a vaccine that health officials hope to rely on around the world because of its low cost, availability and ease of use.

Still, experts say the vaccine seems likely to be approved, despite some confusion in the results and lower levels of protection than what other vaccine candidates have shown. “What we can see looks reasonable, but it’s a bit more complicated than what we’ve seen so far,” said Dr Buddy Creech, a Vanderbilt University researcher helping to test two other vaccines. “If this had been the first report out, the field would have still been excited to have a vaccine.”

The medical journal Lancet on Tuesday published partial results from tests of the vaccine in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa – safety results on 23,745 participants and protection levels on 11,636. They’re hard to interpret because a mistake led some participants to get a half dose followed by a full one rather than two full doses as intended. Researchers claim the vaccine protected against disease in 62 percent of those given two full doses and in 90 percent of those initially given the half dose. However, independent experts have said the second group was too small – 2,741 people – to judge the possible value of that approach and that more testing is needed.

The half-dose group also didn’t include anyone over 55, and among others in the study, only about 20 percent were in that age group. It’s unclear if the results will be enough to lead regulators in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to approve its use right away. “We have no safety concerns about the vaccine,” with no hospitalizations or severe disease among those who received it, and results from all study locations consistently showing benefit, said one study leader, Oxford’s Andrew Pollard.

“The only way we get the pandemic behind us is if we get doses of vaccine out there,” he said. AstraZeneca’s Mene Pangalos called the results “very compelling” and said they “clearly show we have an effective vaccine” that meets criteria for approval around the world. “I really believe this vaccine will have a big impact on the pandemic,” he said. Documents released by US regulators Tuesday confirmed that Pfizer’s vaccine was strongly protective against COVID-19 and appeared safe – offering the world’s first detailed look at the evidence behind the shots. The positive review from the Food and Drug Administration sets the stage for a decision allowing the vaccine’s initial use within days. FDA regulators posted their analysis online even as across the Atlantic, Britain began vaccinating its oldest citizens with the shots, which were co-developed with BioNTech. But the US judges experimental vaccines in a unique way: On Thursday, the FDA will convene what’s essentially a science court that will debate – in public and livestreamed – just how strong the data backing the shots really is. That public vetting is considered key to bolstering confidence in the shots ahead of what’s expected to be the largest vaccination effort in US history. A panel of independent scientists will pick apart the FDA’s first-pass review before recommending whether the vaccine appears safe and effective enough for millions of Americans.

The FDA typically follows the committee’s advice and if it gives the green light, the first recipients would be healthcare workers and nursing home residents, according to plans laid out by each state. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla declined to predict how quickly FDA might issue a decision.

Comfortable
“They need to take as much time as they need to feel comfortable. It’s very important for the trust of the vaccine from the people,” he said at a news conference in Geneva. It’s one of several vaccines in the pipeline being tested in the hope of ending the pandemic.

The FDA later this month will consider a COVID-19 vaccine by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech previously reported the shots appeared 95 percent effective at preventing mild to severe COVID-19 disease in a large, ongoing study.

That’s based on the first 170 infections detected. Only eight of the infections were among volunteers given the real vaccine while the rest had received a dummy shot. FDA’s reviewers agreed that the shots were strongly protective. And of special concern, they worked about as well in older adults, too, the agency confirmed. Among volunteers over age 55, there were three cases of COVID-19 infection who were vaccinated and 48 among placebo recipients.

Five of the cases were among people 75 or older, and all had received the dummy shots. While FDA noted that protection begins to appear two weeks after the first dose, full protection wasn’t calculated until after the second dose. No one yet knows how long that protection lasts, something the still unfinished study eventually will need to answer. “We’re looking at the best possible data,” Dr Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an FDA adviser recently cautioned. “People worry, reasonably, how about six months later?” In the two months that volunteers were tracked so far after the second dose, FDA’s reviewers said protection hadn’t begun waning.

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