Coronavirus live news: Israel to offer Pfizer booster shot as efficacy wanes, say reports; Japan’s daily cases exceed 10,000
Campaign will in effect turn Israel into testing ground for company’s booster; case high comes amid another record day of 3,865 infections in Tokyo
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The US health regulator has expanded the emergency use authorization for Eli Lilly’s Covid-19 drug baricitinib, saying it could now be used without taking Gilead’s drug remdesivir along with it, Lilly has said.
In November, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Lilly and Incyte’s arthritis drug, baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, to treat Covid-19 patients.
The world is witnessing the emergence of more infectious variants of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, write several World Health Organization envoys, but a stuttering race to ensure equitable access to vaccines has seen a handful of countries streak ahead, immunising their own populations, leaving many of the world’s vulnerable people in their wake.
Countries with the greatest stocks of vaccines should not hoard them and push to cover their entire populations while other countries do without. It is not even in their best interests, since the intense circulation of the virus in countries with no vaccines increases the possibility of more transmissible and dangerous variants, threatening to make current vaccines less effective.
Related: To beat Covid, there’s a simple lesson – no one’s safe until everyone’s safe | WHO special envoys
Read the original article at The Guardian