Medicine

The national pharmaceutical panel is scheduled to make its recommendation on Thursday, but the government will wait for a third panel, which has not said when it will reach its conclusion, before deciding whether to grant approval.

This new partnership between the health regulatory authorities of the EU and Brazil is an important step towards mutual recognition and regulatory harmonisation to improve human and animal health.

Sinopharm received emergency use listing from the World Health Organization (WHO) last Friday, making it eligible for the COVAX programme and bolstering Beijing's push for a bigger role in inoculating the world.

That was up from 1.4 billion doses announced in March.

Concerns have risen on potential side-effects of the Anglo-Swedish COVID-19 vaccine.

Western pharmaceutical companies, many of which have received government support to develop vaccines, strongly oppose the transfer of intellectual property to make them.

The solution is to ease restrictions on exporting shots and build more production capacity.

The talks also are likely to focus on a waiver that is significantly narrower in scope and shorter in duration than the one initially proposed by India and South Africa last October.

Special syringes are key to extracting all of the doses of Covid-19 vaccines from vials so none are wasted. There’s a U.S. shortage of them and production isn’t expected to ramp up soon.

Friday's death comes as the country is battling a new outbreak that began early last week and is spreading rapidly in many parts of the country, including the capital Hanoi.

The shifts in guidance on the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker's vector-based shot demonstrate just how hard it is for policy makers to weigh its benefits against risks in the form of very rare - yet occasionally fatal - cases of blood clotting.

The first batch of the Moderna vaccine had already arrived and an estimated 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot are being prepared by its local domestic partners.

European countries distanced themselves on Friday from a proposal backed by U.S. President Joe Biden to waive patent rights on coronavirus vaccines.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday supported a proposal to waive World Trade Organization intellectual property (IP) rules, which would allow poorer countries to produce vaccine for themselves.

The main challenge to raising production of COVID-19 vaccines is how to quickly and effectively transfer technology, Germany's health minister said Friday, reiterating Berlin's opposition to a U.S. proposal to waive patent protection.