Ghana’s pharmaceutical industry has approached AstraZeneca Plc about acquiring the rights to manufacture the U.K. company’s vaccine locally, a move that could boost supplies and speed up the inoculation program in the country.
The West African nation has to date received 842,000 doses of the inoculations from sources including the Covax initiative, which aims to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 shots, and has been allocated about 1.4 million more. That’s only enough to protect a fraction of a population of more than 30 million. A solution would be to set up a local production plant, Lucia Addae, executive secretary of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association of Ghana, said in an interview in Accra. But the group would need an agreement from the U.K.’s AstraZeneca and a pledge from the government to purchase the vaccines before any deal can be reached. “We are having engagements with AstraZeneca mainly on the intellectual property to be able to manufacture their vaccines locally,” Addae said. “We need government’s commitment to purchase and a guaranteed market for the vaccines because they cannot be sold on the open market or over the counter.” The issue of vaccine inequality is only likely to get more pertinent as wealthier countries inoculate their populations and start to open up their economies. Many governments are calling for so-called vaccine passports as a condition to border openings, a policy that would cut off large swathes of the developing world, where procurement and distribution of doses are tougher challenges. India and South Africa have lobbied the World Trade Organization for the temporary waiver of global intellectual property obligations during the pandemic, but the proposal has been largely opposed by the European Union, the U.S. and others, as well as many drugmakers concerned about future profits. Read More: WHO Chief Says Political Will Missing for Equitable Vaccination Setting up a vaccine-manufacturing site is expected to cost as much as $50 million and take anything between six months and two years to build depending on the amount of government support, Addae said. In South Africa, the state-backed BioVac Institute plans to construct a plant at a cost of as much as $238 million after signing a manufacturing deal with U.S.-based ImmunityBio Inc., which is conducting Phase 1 vaccine trials in the country. That could act as a stepping stone toward developing a national inoculation export industry, BioVac Chief Executive Officer Morena Makhoana said last month. Read More: Covid-19 to Serve as Platform for South African Vaccine Industry Ghana has similar ambitions, Addae said. “There is an opportunity to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines in Ghana and on the continent, and we can leverage that to serve West Africa and” other countries, she said. PMAG is a 40-member association of medium- and large-scale manufacturers who dominate the nation’s $700 million pharmaceutical industry. - Bloomberg
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CINCINNATI – Kroger is testing drone delivery technology it says is smart enough to soon deliver barbeque sauce not only to your doorstep but your neighborhood cookout in as little as 15 minutes.
Testing will begin this week near its Kroger Marketplace store in Centerville, Ohio, between Cincinnati and Dayton. The flights will be managed by licensed pilots with Kroger's partner, Drone Express. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this spring, and a second pilot is scheduled to launch this summer at a store in California, where Kroger operates is Ralphs subsidiary. The testing comes after Kroger's e-commerce sales hit $10 billion last year and the company begins ramping up its home-delivery service aimed at doubling that figure by the end of 2023. "We’re excited to test drone delivery and gain insights that will inform expansion plans," said Kroger’s Jody Kalmbach, group vice president of product experience, in a statement. “The pilot reinforces the importance of flexibility and immediacy to customers, powered by modern and efficient last-mile solutions." Workers are slowly returning to offices:Dallas takes the lead, while San Francisco and NY trail behind Diversity in tech:This group's mission is to get more Black product managers in tech. Here’s why. With a current weight limit of five pounds, Kroger is stressing the service's potential for providing last-minute or forgotten items, such as sunscreen delivered to customers at the beach. Because the drones hone in on the customer's smartphone placing the order, it also offers the convenience of delivery away from your home address. So customers could order mustard or mayonnaise they forgot at a picnic in a park. "The possibilities for customers are endless – we can enable Kroger customers to send chicken soup to a sick friend or get fast delivery of olive oil if they run out while cooking dinner,” said Beth Flippo, chief technology officer, of Drone Express' parent company Telegrid, in a statement. Besides Kroger stores, the grocer operates several regional supermarket chains in 35 states, including Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, Ralphs, Mariano's, Fry's, Smith's, King Soopers, QFC and others. The company has nearly 2,800 stores and employs nearly 500,000 workers. (CNN)When astronaut Scott Kelly spent nearly a year in space, his heart shrank despite the fact that he worked out six days a week over his 340-day stay, according to a new study.
Surprisingly, researchers observed the same change in Benoît Lecomte after he completed his 159-day swim across the Pacific Ocean in 2018. The findings suggest that long-term weightlessness alters the structure of the heart, causing shrinkage and atrophy, and low-intensity exercise is not enough to keep that from happening. The study published Monday in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.The gravity we experience on Earth is what helps the heart to maintain both its size and function as it keeps blood pumping through our veins. Even something as simple as standing up and walking around helps pull blood down into our legs.When the element of gravity is replaced with weightlessness, the heart shrinks in response.Kelly lived in the absence of gravity aboard the International Space Station from March 27, 2015, to March 1, 2016. He worked out on a stationary bike and treadmill and incorporated resistance activities into his routine six days a week for two hours each day. Lecomte swam from June 5 to November 11, 2018, covering 1,753 miles and averaging about six hours a day swimming. That sustained activity may sound extreme, but each day of swimming was considered to be low-intensity activity. He swam from Japan to Hawaii and at times saw a piece of plastic in the ocean every three minutes Even though Lecomte was on Earth, he was spending hours a day in the water, which offsets the effects of gravity. Long-distance swimmers use the prone technique, a horizontal facedown position, for these endurance swims. Researchers expected that the activities performed by both men would keep their hearts from experiencing any shrinkage or weakening. Data collected from tests of their hearts before, during and after these extreme events showed otherwise. Kelly and Lecomte both experienced a loss of mass and initial drop in diameter in the left ventricles of the heart during their experiences. Both long-duration spaceflight and prolonged water immersion led to a very specific adaptation of the heart, said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Levine, a professor of internal medicine/cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. While the authors point out that they only studied two men who both performed extraordinary things, further study is needed to understand how the human body reacts in extreme situations. London — AstraZeneca said Monday its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection against disease and complete protection against hospitalization and death across all age groups in a late-stage U.S. study.
The British drug manufacturer also said its experts didn't identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including any surrounding a rare blood clot that was identified in Europe. Scientists found no increased risk of clots among the more than 20,000 people who got at least one dose of the AstraZeneca shot. AstraZeneca said the advanced trial data on the vaccine it developed along with Oxford University shows it is 79% effective. Although the vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries, it hasn't been given the green light in the U.S. yet — and has struggled to gain public trust amid a troubled rollout. The U.S. study was made up of 30,000 volunteers, 20,000 of whom were given the vaccine while the rest got placebo shots. The results were announced Monday. In a statement, AstraZeneca said its vaccine had a 79% efficacy rate at preventing symptomatic COVID and was 100% effective in stopping severe disease and hospitalization. The Indian capital New Delhi will be under a strict lockdown for six days starting on Monday night, the city's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, adding the healthcare system was at a breaking point because of the worsening COVID-19 outbreak.
The city was also facing acute shortages of hospital beds, medical oxygen supplies and key medicines such as the anti-viral Remdesivir, Kejriwal said. London — AstraZeneca said Monday its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection against disease and complete protection against hospitalization and death across all age groups in a late-stage U.S. study.
The British drug manufacturer also said its experts didn't identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including any surrounding a rare blood clot that was identified in Europe. Scientists found no increased risk of clots among the more than 20,000 people who got at least one dose of the AstraZeneca shot. AstraZeneca said the advanced trial data on the vaccine it developed along with Oxford University shows it is 79% effective. Although the vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries, it hasn't been given the green light in the U.S. yet — and has struggled to gain public trust amid a troubled rollout. The U.S. study was made up of 30,000 volunteers, 20,000 of whom were given the vaccine while the rest got placebo shots. The results were announced Monday. In a statement, AstraZeneca said its vaccine had a 79% efficacy rate at preventing symptomatic COVID and was 100% effective in stopping severe disease and hospitalization. - CBS News |
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