Britain says COVID-19 variant booster ready by September

Britain’s vaccines minister says booster shots designed to fight new variants of the coronavirus should be ready for distribution to people over 70 by September.

Nadhim Zahawi told the Daily Telegraph newspaper the government is expecting up to eight different shots to be available by the autumn, including some that may protect against variants.

He said booster shots would be given first to the frontline health workers, the elderly and people with serious health conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19.

While much of Europe is seeing a new surge in the pandemic, Britain is counting on a rapid mass-vaccination program to help it end lockdown and curb Europe’s coronavirus outbreak.

Nearly 30 million people in the U.K., accounting for 55 per cent of all adults, have received a first dose of vaccine. The U.K. has recorded more than 126,000 confirmed deaths.

Elsewhere,

GENEVA — A leader of the U.N.-backed program to ship coronavirus vaccines to needy people in low- and middle-income countries has expressed disappointment about supply delays from a key Indian manufacturer, but says he hopes the United States can begin sharing shots soon.

Dr. Seth Berkley is the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and he says doses for health care workers and other high-risk groups in such countries to be delivered through the COVAX program will be set back weeks.

He was elaborating Friday on an announcement a day earlier from Gavi and partners that as many as 90 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India will be delayed through the end of April as India’s government grapples with a spike in cases.

Berkley says that “we had hoped to reach all health care workers and high-risk groups by the end of March.”

He says talks continue with India’s government and SII “with the hope that we can get some of those doses freed up and be able to then move back into full swing scale-up later, in perhaps May.”

PRAGUE — The Czech Republic’s lower house of Parliament has voted to extend the state of emergency in one of the hardest hit European Union countries till April 11. The house’s approval enables the government to keep in place a tight lockdown through Easter that ends on April 5.

Among the restrictions that became effective on March 1, people have been banned from travelling to other counties unless they go to work or have to take care of relatives. They are part of the measures that are believed to contribute to slowing down the spread of a highly contagious virus variant first found in Britain.

The day-to-day increase of new cases reached 7,853 on Thursday. It was the lowest number for a week day since Feb 8, and about 25% less than the same day a week ago.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the 14-day case notification rate of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants was 1,328 in the Czech Republic, still the second highest in the EU after Estonia. The nation of 10.7 million had 1.5 million confirmed cases with 25,639 deaths.

ATHENS, Greece — Authorities in Greece said students and teachers will have to use self-test kits for COVID-19 in order to attend classes when schools reopen.

Greece is planning to make the test kits freely available on a weekly basis to every resident of the country with a social security number, starting next month. The program is designed to allow for the reopening of schools as well as restaurants and retail businesses which have remained mostly closed since the lockdown was imposed in early November.

Vassilis Kontozamanis, the deputy health minister, said a legislative amendment in parliament would be needed to make testing mandatory for school attendance.

Greece is currently grappling with a surge in coronavirus infections which has seen many hospitals run by the state health system reach capacity. The country’s centre-right government says it plans to launch the tourism season in mid-May but has not yet given a date for schools and retail businesses to reopen. School children of all ages are currently attending compulsory online classes.

GENEVA — The head of the World Health Organization is asking rich countries to donate at least 10 million coronavirus vaccines so the U.N. health agency can reach its goal of vaccination in all countries within the first 100 days of 2021.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says supply problems faced by the U.N.-backed effort COVAX, which aims to provide vaccines to all countries, means that about 20 countries are still awaiting their first doses of vaccines from the program.

Tedros says he’s also asking manufacturers to scale up their production so extra vaccines could be donated to poorer countries. He slammed the numerous private deals countries have struck with pharmaceuticals that have meant fewer vaccines for developing countries and warned COVAX would need many more hundreds of millions of vaccines in the coming months.

On Thursday, WHO’s COVAX partner Gavi, announced supply problems meant it would have to delay the delivery of about 90 million vaccines until about May.