Reuters Health News Summary

Racing the virus: Why tweaking the vaccines won't be simple After developing and rolling out COVID-19 vaccines at record speed, drugmakers are already facing variants of the rapidly-evolving coronavirus that may render them ineffective, a challenge that will require months of research and a massive financial investment, according to disease experts.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. WHO team in Wuhan probing COVID-19 origins moves out of quarantine

A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic left its quarantine hotel in Wuhan on Thursday to begin field work, two weeks after arriving in the Chinese city where the virus emerged in late 2019. The mission has been plagued by delays, concern over access and bickering between China and the United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research. Hopeful signs on pandemic lead some U.S. states to ease coronavirus restrictions

Severe COVID-19 infections are beginning to abate in many parts of the United States even as the death toll mounts, signaling an end to the pandemic's post-holiday surge and prompting some states to ease public health restrictions. A slow but steady reduction in the number of Americans entering hospitals with the disease has paralleled a choppy rollout of vaccines that also are expected to reduce spread of the coronavirus that causes it. We want the shots we ordered, UK says, as Europe's vaccine row escalates

Europe's fight to secure COVID-19 vaccine supplies sharpened on Thursday when Britain demanded that it receive all the shots it paid for after the European Union asked AstraZeneca to divert supplies from the UK. The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West's biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems. Biden to reopen online health insurance marketplaces

U.S. President Joe Biden will reopen the nation's online health insurance marketplace for people who cannot obtain coverage through their employers, the White House said on Thursday. Biden, who took office last week, will restore access to healthcare.gov with an executive order on Thursday afternoon, the latest in a blizzard of moves by the Democratic president to quickly reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump. Africa begins vaccines, sceptical Tanzania told to trust science

Some African nations have begun administering vaccines against COVID-19, regional health officials said on Thursday, though Tanzania's dissenting president was singled out for his trust in alternative remedies and God. John Nkengasong, director of the African Union (AU) bloc's disease control and prevention body, said a few countries had begun vaccinating: Morocco, Egypt, Seychelles and Guinea. Racing the virus: Why tweaking the vaccines won't be simple

After developing and rolling out COVID-19 vaccines at record speed, drugmakers are already facing variants of the rapidly-evolving coronavirus that may render them ineffective, a challenge that will require months of research and a massive financial investment, according to disease experts. Executives from Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE are considering new versions of their vaccines to respond to the most concerning variants identified so far. That is just one piece of the work needed to stay ahead of the virus, nearly a dozen experts told Reuters. "No end in sight": Portugal's hospitals on brink as COVID cases surge

COVID-19 patient Joao Cordeiro has beaten the virus and is about to go home, and his children also made quick recoveries from the disease. But his family's battle with an epidemic that is raging across Portugal is far from over. Cordeiro's wife remains at the Cascais Hospital outside Lisbon, fighting for her life in the emergency unit a few floors below the room he was treated in. Pandemic spurs quest to enroll more Black Americans in vaccine trials

Infectious disease doctor Angela Branche needed help. Branche and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York were running a clinical trial for a vaccine against the coronavirus, which kills Black people at three times the rate it kills whites - yet it was mostly whites signing up. They needed more African Americans. Exclusive: Pharma distributors in talks with U.S. for cut of COVID-19 vaccine shipping deal - sources

U.S. pharmaceutical distributors are talking to federal officials about increasing the number of companies shipping coronavirus vaccines as part of the Biden administration's push to speed up inoculations, according to an industry executive and three people familiar with the matter. President Joe Biden has called the initial phase of the vaccination campaign a "dismal failure" and with vaccinations in the United States at around 1 million per day, the new administration wants to expand and improve the program. Germany to ban travellers from Britain, Portugal amid fears of more contagious virus variants

Germany is preparing entry bans for travellers from Britain, Portugal, Brazil and South Africa to limit the spread of the more contagious variants of the coronavirus raging in these countries, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Thursday. "To protect our population, there should be no entry from regions where these variants of the virus are rampant," he said on the fringes of a virtual meeting with his EU counterparts.