The vaccine is the third to be approved by Health Canada following the December approval of vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc with BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc.

“With Pfizer, Moderna, and now AstraZeneca, Canada will get more than 6.5 million doses before the end of March,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters. “And there will be tens of millions more doses to come between April and June.”

Canada has ordered 20 million doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, and is due to receive 1.9 million through COVAX – the international initiative set up to provide equitable access to vaccines – in the first half of the year.

On Friday, Canada said it had secured an additional 2 million doses through its agreement with Verity Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc and the Serum Institute of India.

The post Canada approves Astra-Zeneca Covid vaccine, to receive 5 lakh doses from India appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

On Monday morning, the full airport and onboard customer experience for flight EK215, which departed Dubai at 0830hrs for Los Angeles, was safely supported by check-in, security, Business and First Class lounge and boarding gate employees, as well as engineers, pilots and cabin crew who made the choice to be fully vaccinated.

Also supporting the flight’s operations were fully vaccinated aircraft appearance, loading and special handling teams from dnata, as well as SkyCargo teams working on the cargo and logistics requirements for EK215.

The Emirates Group rolled out its vaccination drive at pace just over a month ago, and since then, close to 26,000, or 44%, of the Group’s UAE frontline aviation workforce have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Sinopharm vaccines.

Adel Al Redha, Chief Operating Officer, Emirates Airline said: “Our operational workforce are at the aviation frontline, helping people get to where they need to be, and moving essential goods to global communities. Protecting our people with vaccinations is important – for them, for our community, for the smooth running of our operations, and also for our customers as it introduces of an additional layer of protection when they travel with us. We’ve seen a very positive response with high demand and take-up of the COVID-19 vaccine from our colleagues at the operational frontline, and there’s continued momentum in the rate of vaccinations across the business. We would like to thank the UAE’s leadership for making three types of vaccines available in the country, and for their proactive commitment to championing an extensive National Vaccination Programme.”

Nearly 5,000 Cabin and Flight Deck Crew have opted to receive both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. In addition, thousands more Emirates Group employees in other roles have taken their COVID-19 vaccine through the company’s clinics and vaccination centres, while others have opted to take their vaccine at one of the many vaccination centres across the UAE.

Al Redha added: “At the outset of the pandemic, Emirates implemented robust safety measures to protect and prioritise the safety of our customers and employees at all stages of the travel journey, and with the rapid progress of our own vaccination programme and high rates of take-up, more of our flights will soon be operating with fully vaccinated frontline employees. We are also confident that with more people being vaccinated, combined with strong safety measures in place, we can all look forward to the easing of border entry guidelines for many countries.”

The Emirates Group vaccination programme is the latest in its series of safeguards and protections to deliver on its health and safety promises to its customers, employees and the communities it serves around the world. The Group’s vaccination centres have been running 12 hours a day, every day of the week to prioritise and provide aviation frontliners with the vaccine.

The UAE currently has one of the world’s highest rate of vaccinations for its citizens and residents as it fights to curb the spread of COVID-19. So far, the UAE has administered over 5.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, and Our World In Data, a research website based at Oxford University, recently reported that the country’s distribution rate stands at 55.27 doses per 100 people, ranking it the second highest in the world.

The post Emirates operates first flight serviced by fully vaccinated frontline teams appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

Bloomberg reported that Norway doctors have started investigating the deaths of 23 people who died shortly after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus. Doctors said that people aged over 80 years, who have a weak body, are showing adverse reactions to the vaccine.

More than 25,000 people have been vaccinated in the Scandinavian country since the drive began on December 27, 2020.

A direct connection between the Pfizer vaccine and these deaths is yet to be established, but experts observed that 13 of the 23 people who have died have shown common symptoms of mRNA vaccines such as diarrhea, nausea and fever.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has cautioned against vaccinating elderly people above 80years of age saying those with a short life span may not benefit much from the jab.

Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian authorities to investigate the deaths in Norway. According to Pfizer, the regulator discovered “the number of incidents so far is not alarming and in line with expectations”.

Experts cautioned that doctors need to be more careful in vaccinating people in the wake of the deaths of 23 elderly people.

Apart from Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, the vaccine candidate by Moderna also uses mRNA platform. These are “coated molecules of mRNA, similar to DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), that carry the instructions for making a viral protein.

Meanwhile, many news reports said that Pfizer has now gone to temporarily reduce its vaccine supply in Europe following the concerns raised with the deaths in Norway.

The reduction in deliveries is due to Pfizer limiting output so that it can upgrade production capacity to 2 billion vaccine doses per year from 1.3 billion currently, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said.

The post Norway reports death related to Covid vaccination appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has become the first vaccine to receive WHO validation for emergency use. This means the poorer countries may get access to the shots soon.

Every country that has a drug regulatory agency will have to issue its own approval for any coronavirus vaccine, but countries with weak health care systems usually rely on WHO to vet the shots.

The WHO said the decision to issue its first emergency use validation for a coronavirus vaccine “opens the door for countries to expedite their own regulatory approval processes to import and administer the vaccine.”

It also said its review found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has already received clearance in the United States, Britain, the European Union and a dozen other countries, “met the must-have criteria for safety and efficacy set out by WHO”.

BioNTech-Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine’s requirement to be stored at ultra-frozen temperatures is a big hurdle for developing countries where the required freezers and reliable electricity supply may not be available.

The coronavirus vaccine by Pfizer, which is based on a novel technology that uses synthetic mRNA to activate the immune system against the virus, needs to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.

Rural areas in India and many poorer countries are likely to have a hard time in Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine distribution. Plus, many hospitals in big cities also do not have the facilities to store vaccines at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.

“This requirement makes the vaccine more challenging to deploy in settings where ultra-cold chain equipment may not be available or reliably accessible,” WHO said, adding that it was “working to support countries in assessing their delivery plans and preparing for use where possible”.

In India, PM Narendra Modi had held a meeting with chief ministers of all the states and Union Territories to review the coronavirus situation and asked them to start working on cold storage facilities for the coronavirus vaccine.

The post WHO approves Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, poorer countries get early access appeared first on The Gulf Indians.