Reuters Health News Summary

South Africa in African Union talks on COVID-19 shots for 10 million people South Africa is negotiating with an African Union (AU) platform to buy COVID-19 vaccines for at least 10 million of its people, a senior health official said on Friday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. What you need to know about the coronavirus right now

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now: Vaccine confidence grows as side-effect worries fade Britain tells EU: Vaccine export restrictions endanger COVID fight

Britain said that restrictions on the export of COVID-19 vaccines could endanger the global fight against the virus, adding that it expected the European Union to honour commitments it made over its vaccine programme. "The global recovery from COVID relies on international collaboration. We are all dependent on global supply chains - putting in place restrictions endangers global efforts to fight the virus," Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said on Friday. Cheers and hope as doctor gets Nigeria's first COVID-19 vaccine

A doctor who has spent the past year treating COVID-19 patients on Friday became the first person in Nigeria to be vaccinated against the disease, kicking off a mammoth campaign that aims to inoculate 80 million people this year. Vaccinating all of Nigeria's 200 million people and those in other developing countries is seen as key to stemming the global spread of the coronavirus. WHO sees Ebola risk as "very high" for Guinea's neighbours

World Health Organization officials said on Friday the risk of an Ebola outbreak spreading to Guinea's neighbours was "very high" and that some of those countries were not prepared for vaccination campaigns. WHO's Guinea representative Georges Alfred Ki-Zerbo told a virtual briefing that so far 18 cases had been identified, of whom four had died. So far, 1,604 have been vaccinated against Ebola in the new outbreak there. Australia asks EU to review block of AstraZeneca vaccine

Australia has asked the European Commission to review its decision to block a shipment of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, as countries importing EU-made shots fear a potential impact on supplies. The EU executive backed Italy's decision to block a shipment of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, European officials said, in the first refusal of an export request since a mechanism to monitor vaccine flows was established in late January. South Africa in African Union talks on COVID-19 shots for 10 million people

South Africa is negotiating with an African Union (AU) platform to buy COVID-19 vaccines for at least 10 million of its people, a senior health official said on Friday. The country was provisionally allocated 12 million doses developed by AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in an AU vaccine plan, but it was unclear how many vaccines it would seek to buy after it halted plans to use the AstraZeneca shot. COVID-19 prevalence in England falls to 1 in 220 people infected

The prevalence of COVID-19 infections in England has fallen again, with 1 in 220 people infected in the week ending Feb. 27, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday. That is down from 1 in 145 people estimated to have coronavirus in the previous week's ONS Infection Survey, a widely watched estimate of community prevalence of COVID-19 infections. 'Feeling great': East Africa's biggest economy Kenya starts vaccinations

Kenya began vaccinating people on Friday against COVID-19 with AstraZeneca shots hoped to help revive the battered tourism-dependent economy of East Africa's richest nation. "This may mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic," said Susan Mochache, a senior official at the health ministry. Alabama extends COVID mask mandate for a month amid debate between Texas, Biden

Alabama's governor on Thursday extended for another month an order mandating residents to wear face masks to protect against COVID-19, breaking with Mississippi and Texas as the issue again becomes the focus of political debate. Alabama's mask order, which had been due to expire on Friday, will now stay in effect until April 9, Republican Governor Kay Ivey told a news briefing. World no closer to answer on COVID origins despite WHO probe: expert

Despite a high-profile visit to China by a team of international experts in January, the world is no closer to knowing the origins of COVID-19, according to one of the authors of an open letter calling for a new investigation into the pandemic. "At this point we are no further advanced than we were a year ago," said Nikolai Petrovsky, an expert in vaccines at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and one of 26 global experts who signed the open letter, published on Thursday.

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