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Spain has extended a ban on arrivals by air from Britain, Brazil and South Africa until 2 March over the new virus variants detected in those nations, AFP reports.
On Friday, Spain confirmed the first case of the Brazilian variant while at least two cases of the South African variant and 479 cases of the British one have already been detected. Officials predict the British variant could become the dominant strain in Spain by March.
Peru has launched its vaccination campaign with newly arrived doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine, as the South American country struggles to control a fierce second wave of infections that has forced a lockdown in the capital Lima, Reuters reports. It says:
Health officials kicked off the program in the intensive care unit of Lima’s Arzobispo Loayza Hospital, authorities said, where medical staff were slated to receive the first of 300,000 doses delivered by Sinopharm on Sunday.
Peru, mired in a political crisis last year, initially lagged behind its wealthier neighbors in locking down COVID-19 vaccine deals. The Andean nation has since signed agreements with US-based Pfizer, the British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and Sinopharm, and is also slated to receive vaccines through the World Health Organization’s Covax programme.
Read the original article at The Guardian