Health News Roundup: WHO tells rich countries: stop cutting the vaccines queue; UK sees record daily COVID deaths, London hospitals on brink and more

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

WHO tells rich countries: stop cutting the vaccines queue

The head of the World Health Organization said on Friday there is a "clear problem" that low- and middle-income countries are not yet receiving supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and urged countries to stop striking bilateral deals with manufacturers. "Rich countries have the majority of the supply," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in strongly-worded comments on vaccine nationalism at a Geneva news briefing.

UK sees record daily COVID deaths, London hospitals on brink

The United Kingdom recorded its highest daily death toll on Friday since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as London declared a major incident, warning that its hospitals were at risk of being overwhelmed. With a highly transmissable new variant of the virus surging across Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shuttered the economy and is rushing out vaccines faster than the country's European neighbours in a bid to stem the pandemic.

Older Americans scramble for COVID-19 shots as some U.S. states broaden access

At Don's Pharmasave in Louisiana's rural Avoyelles parish, pharmacist Constance Rabalais and colleagues have had to come up with their own policies and procedures for doling out their first 100 COVID-19 vaccine doses amid overwhelming demand. More than a dozen states looking to deploy unused coronavirus vaccines are starting to give shots to older members of the general population while others have not, meaning protection for more than 20 million Americans aching to hug their grandchildren may depend on where they live.

What you need to know about the coronavirus right now Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now: Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears effective against mutation

Britain approves Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, eyes spring rollout Britain's medical regulator on Friday approved Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for use, the health ministry said, adding that it had agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses as it eyed a spring rollout of the shot. Three COVID-19 vaccines have now been approved for use in Britain, with Pfizer/BioNTech's shot and one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca already being administered.

Coronavirus variants may lead to false negative results with molecular tests: FDA Genetic variants of the novel coronavirus, including the one found in UK, could impact the performance of some molecular COVID-19 tests and lead to false negative results, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday. The agency has alerted clinical laboratory staff and health care providers to the possible false negative results from any molecular test, and has asked them to consider such results in combination with clinical observations, and repeat testing with a different test if COVID-19 is still suspected.

Mexico City hospitals 'completely saturated' as COVID-19 surges The 56-year old Mexican woman suffering the effects of COVID-19 slipped in and out of consciousness as paramedics loaded her on and off an ambulance in a frantic search for a hospital bed in Mexico City's overflowing medical centers. It is an increasingly familiar scene in Mexico City and the neighboring State of Mexico, an urban metropolis home to over 20 million residents, as surging COVID-19 cases and deaths push hospitals and healthcare workers to the brink.

Biden favors release of more vaccine doses as U.S. struggles in pandemic's grip President-elect Joe Biden wants to release more available doses of coronavirus vaccines when he takes office, a spokesman said on Friday, as the United States capped the first week of the new year with grim pandemic numbers. The U.S. vaccine rollout has begun slowly as hospitals have not been able to administer the shots as quickly as they received them. A federal program aimed at inoculating residents and staff at long-term care homes has also lagged.

WHO has received 13 valid proposals for vaccine emergency listings since October The World Health Organization has received 13 "valid proposals" for possible emergency listing of COVID-19 vaccines since October, and some are at an advanced stage, assistant director-general Mariangela Simao told a news briefing on Friday. Simao added that the WHO expected to receive full data from Russia's Gamaleya Institute on its vaccine by the end of January.

EU says it has secured nearly half of Pfizer's 2021 global output of COVID-19 shots The European Union reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for 300 million additional doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, the head of the European Commission said on Friday, in a move that would give the EU nearly half of the firms' global output for 2021. Pfizer has said it can produce up to 1.3 billion doses around the world this year. The new agreement with the EU comes on top of another order for 300 million doses of the vaccine, branded in the EU under the name Comirnaty, that the bloc agreed with Pfizer and German partner BioNTech in November.