Health News Roundup: EU loses bid for speedier AstraZeneca vaccine deliveries; Italy's Draghi urges no vaccine let up, signals AstraZeneca U-turn and more

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Biden, Harris urge vaccinations as U.S. looks to miss July 4 target President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris urged Americans to get COVID-19 shots on Friday, as the country looks likely to miss the White House's goals for vaccination next month.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Biden, Harris urge vaccinations as U.S. looks to miss July 4 target

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris urged Americans to get COVID-19 shots on Friday, as the country looks likely to miss the White House's goals for vaccination next month. "Act now, act now," Biden said in remarks at the White House, urging the unvaccinated to talk to their family and friends who have had shots.

Uganda imposes new anti-coronavirus measures to stem raging pandemic

Uganda's president Yowreri Museveni on Friday introduced sweeping new anti-coronavirus measures including a ban on all vehicular movement except for essential workers to help curb a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the nation. The east African country, like most other African peers had been left relatively unscathed by the first wave. It suddenly started experiencing a steep surge in COVID-19 infections last month after authorities confirmed they had detected presence of the Indian coronavirus variant.

COVID-19 may cause loss of brain tissue; Delta variant fuels steep infection rise in England

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. COVID-19 survivors may have loss of brain tissue

AstraZeneca must use Britain's plant if needed to meet EU's vaccine commitments - EU lawyer

AstraZeneca must deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the European Union also from a factory in Britain if it is needed to meet its commitments with the EU, a judge ruled on Friday, according to a lawyer representing the EU. The company had said it could not immediately deliver to the EU doses from an Oxford Biomedica factory in Britain because it had to supply the United Kingdom first.

EU loses bid for speedier AstraZeneca vaccine deliveries

The European Union on Friday lost its bid to speed up deliveries of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines, the first of its legal challenges against the drugmaker that rocked the bloc as it scrambled to shore up supplies. AstraZeneca said the EU had lost its legal case, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the court ruling supported its view that the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant had failed to honour its commitments.

German lab, J&J still hashing out details of COVID-19 vaccine clot collaboration

A scientist investigating rare blood clots possibly linked to AstraZeneca's and Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccines has yet to start a planned collaboration with the U.S. company, he said, as talks over their research pact continue. Dr. Andreas Greinacher, a transfusion medicine expert at Germany's Greifswald University, has been studying clotting with low blood platelets in people who got AstraZeneca's vaccine.

U.S. administers more than 316 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines - CDC

The United States has administered 316,048,776 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 377,935,390 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Those figures are up from the 314,969,386 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by June 17 out of 377,215,060 doses delivered.

Analysis: Rival treatments may help justify FDA gamble with Biogen Alzheimer's drug

Data from clinical trials of three experimental Alzheimer's disease drugs expected to start emerging next year could help shed light on whether U.S. regulators were justified in their controversial approval of a Biogen Inc treatment without clear evidence that it works. In approving Biogen's Aduhelm over the objection of its own panel of outside expert advisers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required a trial to confirm that the medicine will indeed slow progression of the lethal, mind-wasting disease - a process that could take several years - even as the drug is being used by patients.

Italy's Draghi urges no vaccine let up, signals AstraZeneca U-turn

Prime Minister Mario Draghi urged Italians on Friday to get fully vaccinated against coronavirus, acknowledging that a government decision to ban AstraZeneca doses for people aged over 60 had created confusion. "It is fundamental that people get vaccinated," Draghi told a hastily called news conference, signalling a U-turn on the block on AstraZeneca. "The worst thing you could do is not get vaccinated, or just get one vaccine shot," he said.

Delta COVID variant becoming globally dominant, WHO official says

The Delta variant of COVID-19, first identified in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease, the World Health Organization's chief scientist said on Friday.

Soumya Swaminathan also voiced disappointment in the failure of CureVac's vaccine candidate in a trial to meet the WHO's efficacy standard, in particular as highly transmissible variants boost the need for new, effective shots.