Health News Roundup: New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for future generations; Doctors weigh COVID-19 impact on children as vaccine drives ramp up and more

Balde's comments at a news conference follow early anecdotal accounts by South African doctors and researchers that Omicron is causing mainly mild disease. Act now to curb Omicron's spread, WHO's Tedros tells world Governments need to reassess national responses to COVID-19 and speed up vaccination programmes to tackle Omicron, though it is it too early to say how well existing shots will protect against the new variant, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.


Reuters | Updated: 09-12-2021 18:43 IST | Created: 09-12-2021 18:32 IST
Health News Roundup: New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for future generations; Doctors weigh COVID-19 impact on children as vaccine drives ramp up and more
Representative Image Image Credit: ANI

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for future generations

New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long. People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of five million, part of proposals unveiled on Thursday that will also curb the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.

Doctors weigh COVID-19 impact on children as vaccine drives ramp up

One month after her son Eran had recovered from a mild case of COVID-19, Sara Bittan rushed the three-year-old to the emergency room. He had high fever, a rash, his eyes and lower body were swollen and red, his stomach was hurting and he was crying in pain. Eventually diagnosed with the rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), also known as pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, or PIMS, Eran was hospitalized in October for a week and has fully recovered, Bittan said.

U.S. FDA authorizes use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 antibody cocktail

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the use of AstraZeneca's antibody cocktail to prevent COVID-19 infections in individuals with weak immune systems or a history of severe side effects from coronavirus vaccines. The antibody cocktail, Evusheld, is only authorized for adults and adolescents who are not currently infected with the novel coronavirus and have not recently been exposed to an infected individual, the regulator said.

Only 6% of S.Africa's intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients - WHO official

South Africa, where the Omicron coronavirus variant is driving a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, has seen a 255% increase in infections in the past seven days, but only 6% of intensive care beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, WHO Africa official Thierno Balde said on Thursday. Balde's comments at a news conference follow early anecdotal accounts by South African doctors and researchers that Omicron is causing mainly mild disease.

Act now to curb Omicron's spread, WHO's Tedros tells world

Governments need to reassess national responses to COVID-19 and speed up vaccination programmes to tackle Omicron, though it is it too early to say how well existing shots will protect against the new variant, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. The variant's global spread suggests it could have a major impact on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the time to contain it is now before more Omicron patients are hospitalised, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

People with health issues or inactivated vaccine should get COVID-19 booster - WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended on Thursday that people who are immunocompromised or received an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine should receive a booster dose to protect against waning immunity. Many countries have been rolling out booster shots, targeting the elderly and people with underlying health issues, but worries about the new, more transmissible Omicron variant have prompted some to expand their use to larger portions of their populations.

India's Serum Institute let Africa down on vaccines, says Africa CDC

The Serum Institute of India, the world's biggest vaccine maker, let Africa down by pulling out of talks to supply COVID-19 vaccines, creating distrust that has affected demand, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control said on Thursday. John Nkengasong denounced recent comments from Serum that uptake of its COVID-19 shots had slowed because of low demand from Africa and vaccine hesitancy, saying the real problem was that Serum had acted unprofessionally.

U.S. campaign to vaccinate young children off to sluggish start despite abundant supply

The United States rushed millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for children ages 5 to 11 across the nation, but demand for inoculations for younger kids has been low, more than a dozen state public health officials and physicians said. Of the 28 million eligible U.S. children in that age group, around 5 million have received at least one dose, according to federal data, likely satisfying initial pent up demand from parents who were waiting to vaccinate their kids.

Africa accounts for 36% of reported cases of Omicron, WHO official says

Africa accounts for 36% of reported cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 globally, Richard Mihigo, coordinator of the World Health Organisation's Immunisation and Vaccine Development Programme for Africa, told an online briefing on Thursday.

WHO: wealthy countries may hoard COVID-19 shots again to fight new variant

Wealthy countries may start to hoard COVID-19 vaccines again, threatening global supplies as they seek to shore up stocks to fight the new Omicron variant of the virus, a senior World Health Organization official said on Thursday. The warning by the WHO's vaccine director, Kate O'Brien, comes as supplies to the COVAX dose-sharing programme run by the WHO and vaccine charity GAVI have increased in the past few months due to donations from wealthy countries and after India eased limits on exports of vaccines.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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