Headlines
• Pfizer withdraws application for use in India
• Netherlands restricts use of AstraZeneca vaccine to under 65s
• Paraguay to purchase Sputnik V vaccine
• US has administered 35m vaccine doses
• South Tyrol to go into lockdown
World news
• The Netherlands has restricted the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to people aged under 65.
• The World Health Organization said its COVAX initiative aims to start shipping nearly 90 million vaccine doses to Africa in February. About 320,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been allocated to four African countries: Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa and Tunisia.
• Paraguay signed a contract with the Russian Direct Investment Fund to purchase the Sputnik V vaccine.
• China will donate 100,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Congo Republic and forgive $13m in public debt, its ambassador to the country said.
• Johnson & Johnson said on Thursday it has asked the FDA to authorise its single-dose vaccine for emergency use, and it will apply to European authorities in coming weeks. The vaccine had a 66% rate of preventing infections in its large global trial.
• The US CDC has said it had administered 35,203,710 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 57,489,675 doses.
• South Tyrol province in Northern Italy will go into lockdown for three weeks from Monday. Shops will shut, schools will go online and there will be a ban on moving between towns.
• Pfizer said it has withdrawn an application for emergency-use authorisation of its vaccine in India, after failing to meet the drug regulator’s demand for a local safety and immunogenicity study.
• Burundi and Tanzania have said they do not need vaccines.
• Serbia will invest “as much as necessary” to start domestic production of Russia’s Sputnik V by the end of the year, according to president Aleksandar Vucic.
