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The Latest: WHO endorses antibody treatment for some people

The World Health Organization is recommending a pricey antibody treatment for certain coronavirus patients in the latest update to its guidelines for treating people with COVID-19

Via AP news wire
Friday 24 September 2021 11:39 BST
Virus Outbreak Sri Lanka
Virus Outbreak Sri Lanka

LONDON — The World Health Organization is recommending a pricey antibody treatment for certain coronavirus patients in the latest update to its guidelines for treating people with COVID-19.

The new guidelines, published Friday in the journal BMJ, say the two antibodies - casirivimab and imdevimab = made by Regeneron should be given to people infected with COVID-19 who are at highest risk of hospitalization and to people whose own immune systems have not mounted a response.

The U.N. health agency said the new advice was based on evidence from experimental trials, including a British-run study that is the world’s largest for testing potential COVID-19 treatments.

In the U.S., the Regeneron treatment is mostly recommended for people with mild to moderate COVID-19, to prevent them from needing hospitalization.

Activists worried that the cost of the treatment - more than $2,000 in the U.S. - means it will mostly be unavailable to people in poorer countries. Doctors Without Borders called for Regeneron to ensure the antibody drugs are accessible to needy patients and for the company to license any proprietary rights and share technological know-how for how to make them.

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MORE ON THE PANDEMIC:

— CDC endorses COVID booster shots for millions of older Americans

— ″Vaccine apartheid’: Africans tells UN they need vaccines

More rental aid is reaching U.S. tenants to stave off eviction

— Polish protesters warn that health care crisis is looming

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See all of AP's pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

MOSCOW -- Coronavirus deaths in Russia hit a record on Friday amid a steady increase in infections.

Russia’s state coronavirus task force reported 828 new deaths on Friday, the country's highest daily number of the pandemic. The previous record of 820 daily deaths was registered on Aug. 26, and on Thursday this week the daily death toll reached 820 once again.

In all, Russian authorities have reported some 7.3 million confirmed cases and over 202,000 deaths. However, reports by the government’s statistical service Rosstat that tally coronavirus-linked deaths retroactively reveal much higher mortality numbers.

Daily coronavirus infections in Russia have fallen from over 20,000 in late August to about 18,000 in mid-September but started creeping up again last week. On Thursday and Friday, the state coronavirus task force reported over 21,000 new daily cases.

Despite the increase, the Kremlin is not considering the possibility of imposing a nationwide lockdown at this point, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

Hardly any restrictions are currently in place in Russia, which has had one lockdown that lasted for six weeks.

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NEW YORK -- Hospitals and nursing homes in New York are bracing for the possibility that a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers could lead to staff shortages.

Health care workers have been given until Sept. 27 to get at least their first vaccine shot in one of the nation’s most aggressive plans to protect patients. With just days left to go before the deadline, many still hadn’t gotten the shots.

That creates the prospect of potentially thousands of health care workers being forced off the job next week. Some hospitals and nursing homes were preparing contingency plans Friday that included cutting back on elective surgeries and trimming medical services.

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SYDNEY — Australia’s two largest cities are moving closer to ending lockdowns as vaccination rates climb, but leaders are warning that people should remain cautious with their newfound freedoms and that coronavirus case numbers will inevitably rise.

In New South Wales state, where an outbreak continues to grow in Sydney, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has set a target of reopening on Oct. 11 once vaccination milestones are reached.

But she said Friday it would need to be done “with a degree of caution and responsibility” because otherwise too many people would end up in hospitals. Meanwhile in Victoria State, where there is an outbreak in Melbourne,

Health Minister Martin Foley said there had been a “tremendous” increase in vaccinations and there was “no shortage of enthusiasm” among people wanting to get jabs.

Health officials in New South Wales reported 1,043 new cases and 11 deaths on Friday, while officials in Victoria reported 733 new cases and one death.

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SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea has reported its biggest daily jump in coronavirus since the start of the pandemic as people returned from the country’s biggest holiday of the year.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said more than 1,750 of the 2,434 new cases reported Friday were from the greater capital area, where officials have raised concern over an erosion in citizen vigilance despite the enforcement of the strongest social distancing rules short of a lockdown since July.

It was expected that transmissions would worsen beyond the capital region during the Chuseok holidays, the Korean version of Thanksgiving which began on the weekend and continued through Wednesday, a period when millions usually travel across the country to meet relatives.

The restrictions in the Seoul metropolitan area prevents gatherings of three or more people after 6 p.m. unless the participants are fully vaccinated.

The country has now reported a daily increase of more than 1,000 for 80 straight days. It’s previous one-day record was 2,221 reported on Aug. 11.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama has averaged more than 100 deaths a day from COVID-19 over the last week, statistics showed Thursday, giving it the highest death rate in the United States for the period even as hospitalizations linked to the coronavirus pandemic continue to decline.

Statistics from Johns Hopkins University show 106 deaths were reported statewide daily over the last seven days, although some of those could have occurred earlier because of a lag in reporting. Alabama’s rate of 18 deaths for every 100,000 people over the last week is far above second-place West Virginia, which had 10 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The increase in deaths come as hospitalizations in the state fell below 1,800 patients for the first time in a month, a change health officials said likely was due to both people getting well and dying.

While more people are getting vaccinated than before the highly contagious delta strain took hold, the state still has one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, and its chief health officer said still more people need to get shots because the risk of getting infected remains high.

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NEW YORK — The inequity of COVID-19 vaccine distribution is coming into sharper focus as many of the African countries whose populations have little to no access to the life-saving shots stepped to the podium to speak at the U.N.’s annual meeting of world leaders.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pointed to vaccines as “the greatest defense that humanity has against the ravages of this pandemic.”

Ramaphosa, speaking by video link, urged U.N. member states to support a proposal to temporarily waive certain intellectual property rights established by the World Trade Organization to allow more countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries, to produce COVID-19 vaccines.

“It is an indictment on humanity that more than 82% of the world’s vaccine doses have been acquired by wealthy countries, while less than 1% has gone to low-income countries,” he says.

The U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Israel are among the countries administering boosters or have announced plans to do so. Namibia president Hage Geingob called it “vaccine apartheid.”

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