Health News Roundup: Roche, Sanofi arthritis drugs reduce death rates among sickest COVID-19 patients; UK extends England entry ban to travellers from 11 African countries for COVID variant and more

The U.S. biotech company, which stunned the world last year by coming up with a vaccine against the disease caused by the new coronavirus in just a few weeks, received approval for its shot from the European Commission on Wednesday.

Moderna's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is likely to offer protection of up to a couple of years, its chief executive said on Thursday, even though more data is still needed to make a definitive assessment. The U.S. biotech company, which stunned the world last year by coming up with a vaccine against the disease caused by the new coronavirus in just a few weeks, received approval for its shot from the European Commission on Wednesday.

Roche, Sanofi arthritis drugs reduce death rates among sickest COVID-19 patients

Treating critically ill COVID-19 patients with Roche's Actemra or Sanofi's Kevzara arthritis drugs significantly improves survival rates and reduces the amount of time patients need intensive care, study results showed on Thursday. The findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, showed that the immunosuppressive drugs - Actemra, also known as tocilizumab, and Kevzara, also known as sarilumab - reduced death rates by 8.5 percentage points among patients hospitalised and severely ill with the pandemic disease.

UK extends England entry ban to travellers from 11 African countries for COVID variant

The United Kingdom said on Thursday it would extend a ban on travellers entering England to southern African countries in a measure to prevent the spread of a new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa. The restriction will take effect on Saturday and remain in place for two weeks, the government said in a statement https://bit.ly/3pTvmsk.

China study says Wuhan COVID infections 3 times higher than official figure

The number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, could be around three times the official figure, according to a study by Chinese researchers based in the city. The paper, published by the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal on Thursday, analysed blood samples from more than 60,000 healthy individuals taken from locations across China from March to May 2020.

Japan will consider expanding coronavirus state of emergency if needed

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Friday the government would liaise with other prefectures and check whether the state of emergency over the coronavirus for the greater Tokyo region should be extended to those areas. The governors of Osaka and Aichi are expected to request being added to the emergency declaration as infections surge in their prefectures.

21.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed, 5.9 million administered: U.S. CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 5,919,418 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 21,419,800 doses. The tally of vaccine doses distributed and the number of people who received the first dose are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 9:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, the agency said.