The Japanese government is considering offering the coronavirus vaccine for free to all citizens, Kyodo news reported today. The government has said it aims to secure enough coronavirus vaccines for every citizen by the middle of next year even as questions remain over how soon a vaccine can be expected. Japan has been hit hard by the coronavirus and announced in mid-May that it was already in recession when first-quarter GDP slid by 0.6 percent after a 1.9-percent drop in the final three months of 2019. The world?s third biggest economy then recorded a further slump of 7.8 percent in the April-June quarter, its worst on record, as the coronavirus exacerbated chronic economic woes.
Here are the latest updates on the coronavirus vaccine:
• European Union states could buy potential coronavirus vaccines through a procurement scheme dubbed COVAX co-led by the World Health Organization, the EU Commission told Reuters. The move could allow EU governments to secure vaccines from companies from US firms Merck, Inovio and Novavax.
• Chinese drug giant Sinopharm began testing a Covid-19 vaccine in Bahrain in August after starting a similar trial on 15,000 subjects in the nearby United Arab Emirates a month earlier. The randomised, double-blind trial of 6,000 people is still recruiting healthy men and women as volunteers to test the vaccine?s efficacy and safety in a large cross-section of the population. The trial is due to finish next July, while the overall study is forecast to be completed by September 2021, according to the US National Library of Medicine.
• More than 30 potential vaccines are currently being tested on humans across the globe in the hope of ending a pandemic that has now killed more than 850,000 people, according to an AFP tally. Researchers in the Bahrain study will look at how many patients contract the virus after receiving two doses of the vaccine, as well as examine any adverse reactions.
• The White House on Tuesday pushed back on concerns expressed by the World Health Organization after a U.S. health official said a coronavirus vaccine might be approved without completing full trials. ?The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China,? White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. ?This President will spare no expense to ensure that any new vaccine maintains our own FDA?s gold standard for safety and efficacy, is thoroughly tested, and saves lives,? he said. US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday that the FDA was prepared to authorize a coronavirus vaccine before late-stage Phase Three clinical trials were complete, as long as officials are convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks.
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