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 J&J pauses COVID-19 vaccine trials due to unexplained illness
Johnson & Johnson said on Monday it had temporarily paused its novel
coronavirus vaccine candidate clinical trials due to an unexplained
illness in a study participant, delaying one of the highest-profile
efforts to contain the pandemic.
The participant's illness is being reviewed and evaluated by an
independent data and safety monitoring board as well as the
company's clinical and safety physicians, the company said in a
statement.
J&J, which reports quarterly financial results on Tuesday morning,
said that such pauses are normal in big trials, which can include
tens of thousands of people. It said the "study pause" in giving
doses of the vaccine candidate was different from a "regulatory
hold" required by health authorities. The current case is a pause.
More needed to tackle economic fallout, IMF head says
The international community must do more to tackle the economic
fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, IMF Managing Director Kristalina
Georgieva said, publicly calling on the World Bank to accelerate its
lending to hard-hit African countries.
The pandemic, a collapse in commodity prices and a plague of locusts
have hit Africa particularly hard, putting 43 million more people at
risk of extreme poverty, according to World Bank estimates. African
states have reported more than 1 million coronavirus cases and some
23,000 deaths.
Georgieva said the Fund was also pushing richer member countries to
loan more of their existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the IMF's
currency, to countries that needed support most, and it was "very
committed" to finding a way forward for countries like Zambia now
needing to restructure their debts.
EU travellers could avoid quarantine with negative test
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Travellers across Europe could avoid quarantine under plans to introduce a
comprehensive COVID-19 testing regime, the Telegraph reported on Monday.
The European Commission wants testing to be the "preferred" alternative to
quarantine for travellers and has commissioned health experts to develop
protocols, the report said. EU foreign ministers will sign the proposed traffic
light system on Tuesday, it said.
Plans will also require "mutual recognition" of COVID-19 tests by countries,
which would enable arriving business travellers and holiday-makers to reduce or
sidestep quarantine by presenting a medical certificate showing a negative
coronavirus result, according to the newspaper.
Mother-to-newborn transmission rare
Transmission of the new coronavirus from mothers to newborns is rare, doctors
from New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center reported on
Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, after studying 101 babies born to 100 mothers with
COVID-19, including 10 whose mothers had been severely ill.
Almost all of the babies tested negative for the virus, while tests in two
newborns had indeterminate results.
Roughly 90% of the newborns were breastfed at least partially. "As the country
heads into what looks like a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is
important to know that separation of affected mothers from their newborns may
not be warranted, and direct breastfeeding appears to be safe," study coauthor
Dr Melissa Stockwell said.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh)
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