Health News Roundup: Australia's Ellume gets $230 million from U.S; WHO team in Wuhan hold "good discussions" with Chinese counterparts and more

Novavax submits COVID-19 vaccine for authorization in Canada Novavax Inc has submitted its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to the Canadian health regulator for emergency-use authorization after the pharmaceutical company said last week its vaccine was 89% effective in a UK trial.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Exclusive: Oxford kept COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers in dark about dosing error, letter shows

About 1,500 of the initial volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were given the wrong dose, but weren't informed that a mistake had been made after the blunder was discovered, documents obtained by Reuters show. Instead, the dosing mishap was presented to the trial participants in a letter dated June 8 as an opportunity for University of Oxford researchers to learn how well the vaccine works at different doses. The letter was signed by the trial's chief investigator, Oxford professor Andrew J. Pollard, and sent to the trial subjects.

Colombia in talks on Sputnik, other COVID-19 vaccines: health minister

Colombia is in talks with Russia's Gamaleya Institute about acquiring doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, its health Minister said on Monday, but is not rushing a deal because of existing vaccine provision deals with pharmaceutical companies. The Andean country already has deals with a raft of vaccine producers and the World Health Organization-backed COVAX mechanism to secure over 61 million vaccine doses, enough to inoculate some 35.2 million people.

U.S. new COVID cases fall for third straight week, hospitalizations down

New cases of COVID-19 in the United States fell for a third week in a row, the first time the country has seen such an extended decline since last September, though more than a million people are still being infected every week. New cases in the seven days ended Jan. 31 fell 9% from the previous week to 1.1 million, with only four out of 50 states reporting rises, namely Louisiana, Washington, Pennsylvania and Montana, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

Israel supplies first COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians

Israel said on Monday it supplied the Palestinians with their first shipment of COVID-19 shots, totalling 2,000 doses of Moderna's vaccine. The vaccines were transferred into the occupied West Bank and will be used by Palestinian Authority medical teams, according to a statement by COGAT, Israel's military liaison to the Palestinians.

UK detects South African coronavirus variant in people with no travel links

Eleven people in different regions of England have tested positive for the South African coronavirus variant without having any links to people who have travelled, prompting mass testing in the areas to contain the outbreak. Britain, with the world's fifth-highest COVID-19 death toll, has moved to tighten its borders out of concern that new variants of the virus will undermine its vaccination drive.

'Don't be afraid': Polish restaurants, gyms defy 'unenforceable' restrictions

Police visited Maciej Adamski's restaurant north of the Polish capital 16 times in 10 days, telling him that he had to shut up shop because of coronavirus restrictions, but Adamski is not convinced that is strictly correct. His restaurant, Qlturalni Qlinarni Q&Q, serves traditional Polish fare, the walls festooned with guitars and other instruments.

Early U.S. data indicates Blacks, Hispanics lagging in COVID-19 vaccinations

Early data on U.S. coronavirus vaccinations released on Monday suggests that Blacks and Hispanics received a smaller proportion of shots than their representation among healthcare workers and nursing home residents, two priority groups for COVID-19 inoculations. The United States needs more complete data on the race and ethnicity of people who have been vaccinated, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which released the data.

WHO team in Wuhan hold "good discussions" with Chinese counterparts

A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday visited the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China's central region of Hubei, where the outbreak emerged in late 2019. The group of independent experts spent about 4-1/2 hours on its longest site visit since completing two weeks of quarantine on Thursday, and did not speak to waiting journalists.

Novavax submits COVID-19 vaccine for authorization in Canada

Novavax Inc has submitted its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to the Canadian health regulator for emergency-use authorization after the pharmaceutical company said last week its vaccine was 89% effective in a UK trial. The vaccine candidate will be reviewed in real-time once the Canadian government accepts the application, which was submitted by the company on Friday, according to a notice on Health Canada's website. https://bit.ly/3oCuFTr

Australia's Ellume gets $230 million from U.S. to make more rapid COVID-19 tests

The U.S. government has awarded $231.8 million to Australian diagnostic test maker Ellume to expand the production of a rapid COVID-19 test that can be bought over the counter and used at home, the Department of Defense said on Monday. The agency said the funding will help Ellume increase production capacity by 640,000 tests per day by December 2021, adding that the government would procure 8.5 million of the tests. (http://bit.ly/3rbu6l1)