Hungary first in EU to approve China’s Sinopharm vaccine









A health worker injects a syringe with a vial of the Phase 3 Novavax coronavirus vaccine for use in the trial at St. George's University hospital in London, Oct 7, 2020. (ALASTAIR GRANT / AP)

WASHINGTON / NAIROBI / CHICAGO / LONDON / MEXICO CITY / LISBON / BUENOS AIRES / LA PAZ / PARIS / BRUSSELS / RABAT / ALGIERS / ZURICH / ROME / BERLIN / MOSCWO / MADRID / OTTAWA / HAVANA / KIEV / ATHENS – Hungary became the first European Union country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine from China after Premier Viktor Orban said the country would buy Sinopharm vaccines to speed up inoculations amid the slow rollout of western shots.

The decision followed a government decree that allows the automatic approval of vaccines already used on at least 1 million people abroad, Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Muller said at a briefing on Friday. Hungary is ready to place a major order with Sinopharm in days, Orban told state radio earlier in the day.

Hungary will be able to vaccinate at least 880,000 people by the beginning of March, allowing the government to consider lifting some coronavirus-related lockdown restrictions from the Easter holidays in early April, according to Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Procurement of further vaccines from China and Russia may allow for a more accelerated vaccinating campaign, the premier said in a state radio interview on Friday. Hungarians will be able to choose from available vaccines, but people who reject certain types of shots may be pushed to the end of the queue, the premier said.

Novavax 

Novavax Inc said on Thursday its coronavirus vaccine was 89.3 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in a trial conducted in the United Kingdom, and was nearly as effective in protecting against the more highly contagious variant first discovered in the UK, according to a preliminary analysis.

A mid-stage trial of the vaccine in South Africa showed 60 percent effectiveness among people who did not have HIV

A mid-stage trial of the vaccine in South Africa, where a troubling new variant of the virus is common, showed 60 percent effectiveness among people who did not have HIV.

The company noted in a conference call that this was interim data and executives said they expect it will be two to three months before they are ready to apply for authorization with regulators.

Novavax is already stockpiling vaccine at six operating manufacturing locations, and said it expects a total of eight plants in seven countries to produce at the rate of 2 billion doses per year, including from the Serum Institute of India.

The firm said it started making new versions of its vaccine to protect against emerging virus variants in early January and expects to select ideal candidates for a booster in the coming days. The company said it plans to initiate clinical testing of these new vaccines in the second quarter of this year.

EU

The European Union's (EU) contract with AstraZeneca for its COVID-19 vaccine contains binding orders, EU Commision head Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday, as the bloc continues to press the drugmaker to deliver supplies as promised.

The bloc is poised to ban COVID-19 vaccine exports if drugmakers fail to meet delivery targets within the bloc, stepping up its battle for doses as governments warn of shortages in the weeks ahead.

"AstraZeneca has also explicitly assured us in this contract that no other obligations would prevent the contract from being fulfilled," von der Leyen told Deutschlandfunk radio.

The EU chief demanded that AstraZeneca fulfill its contractual obligations. 

The EU wants to make a redacted version of the contract public later on Friday, she said.

AstraZeneca Plc bowed to pressure and published its contract for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to the region as tensions escalate over an expected shortfall in supplies.

Last week, AstraZeneca unexpectedly announced cuts in supplies to the EU, citing production problems at a Belgian factory. EU officials said that meant a 60 percent cut to 31 million doses in the period to end-March.

An EU official directly involved in talks with the company told Reuters that AstraZeneca had later offered to increase deliveries to possibly 39 million doses in the first quarter, which the EU considered insufficient.

Under a contract agreed in August the company should have supplied at least 80 million doses to the EU in that period, the official said, and possibly even 120 million "depending on how you read the contract".

The EU is poised to tighten rules on the export of COVID-19 vaccines. The EU’s executive arm will on Friday require companies seeking to ship the inoculations outside the bloc to obtain prior authorization.

European Council President Charles Michel has also raised the prospect of effectively seizing control of vaccine production if those measures fail to get the program back on track, a European official said.

Belgium's Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAGG) said on Thursday that the EU executive had requested an inspection of production flows at a plant in Belgium that makes the AstraZeneca vaccine. 

Meanwhile, Europe's drugs regulator said on Thursday it now recommended that the second dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine be given three weeks after the first as many countries delay shots to vaccinate more of their population.

A health worker refills oxygen tanks for patients with COVID-19 in the Iztapalapa district of Mexico City, Jan 26, 2021. (MARCO UGARTE / AP)

Mexico

Mexico’s COVID-19 deaths surpassed those in India, making it the country with the third-highest number of fatalities worldwide, as officials struggle to contain a pandemic that’s taking an increasingly grim toll. 

The Health Ministry reported 1,506 additional deaths, taking the death toll to 155,145 on Thursday night. 

It also reported 18,670 new cases, bringing the tally to 1,825,519.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's health is improving and he is practically without symptoms of COVID-19 after he announced on Sunday he had caught the virus.

UK

The spread of a new UK strain of COVID-19 stabilized or fell in most British regions with the country under a severe lockdown, even as overall case loads remained high.

The East Midlands was only place where the percentage of cases linked to the new variant rose in the week to Jan. 23, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, suggesting the UK’s restriction have helped arrest transmission of a strain officials have warned is more deadly and easier to spread.

Britain's coronavirus reproduction number, known as the R number, is estimated at between 0.7 and 1.1, the British government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said Friday.

Britain cannot publish details of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine supply contract because it would jeopardize national security, British prisons minister Lucy Frazer said on Friday, as the EU threatened drug companies over supply delays.

Scotland will publish COVID-19 detailed vaccine supply data next week even though the British government has refused to do so.

Official data on Thursday showed that 7.45 million people have been given the first dose of a vaccine, up from a figure of 7.16 million people announced on Wednesday.

The United Kingdom recorded a further 1,239 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test on Thursday, down from 1,725  the day before, as well as 28,680 new cases.

The new figures bring the cumulative tally to 3,743,734 and the toll to 103,126, according to official data.

Britain is adding the United Arab Emirates, Burundi and Rwanda to its coronavirus travel ban list from Friday in response to new evidence showing the likely spread of a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa to the newly banned countries.

Belgium 

Belgium has registered a total of 702,437 COVID-19 infections since the pandemic outbreak, according to figures released Friday by the public health institute Sciensano.

In the week of Jan. 19-25, an average of 2,210 new infections were registered per day, an increase of 12 percent on a weekly basis, showed Sciensano data.

In the week of Jan. 22-28, Sciensano reported an average of 125 new admissions per day. Currently, 1,817 patients are hospitalized, 323 of them in intensive care.

To date, Belgium has recorded 20,982 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Portugal

Portugal extended a nationwide lockdown until mid-February and announced curbs on international travel on Thursday, as it saw a record number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths and infections.

Portugal reported an additional 303 fatalities and 16,432 cases, bringing the totals to 11,608 COVID-19 deaths and 685,383 cases. The country of 10 million people now has the world's highest seven-day rolling average of cases and deaths per capita, according to data tracker www.ourworldindata.org.

To try to curb the spread, Portuguese nationals will be banned from traveling to other countries by air, land or sea over the next 15 days and strict checks along the 1,200-kilometer border with Spain will be put in place, the government announced.

Parliament voted to extend the new lockdown until at least Feb 14. Non-essential services are closed, remote work is compulsory where possible and schools are shut.

Cabinet Affairs Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva said the government could restrict flights to Portugal from certain countries when necessary. A mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving from elsewhere could also be imposed.

READ MORE: German minister sees COVID-19 vaccine shortage well into April

Georgia 

Georgia on Friday reported 669 new COVID-19 cases, taking its total to 256,956, according to the country's National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC).

Data from the NCDC showed that 637 more patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 247,096.

Meanwhile, 21 people died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 3,148.

The NCDC said 19,311 tests have been conducted in the past 24 hours around the country while the infection rate continued to decline gradually.

US

The first cases of the new coronavirus variant that recently emerged in South Africa have been confirmed in South Carolina, the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) said on Thursday.

The department said "there is no known travel history and no connection between these two cases".

Meanwhile in New York, the state's health department may have undercounted the COVID-19 death toll among state nursing home residents by as much as 50 percent, according to a report released by the state attorney general’s office on Thursday.

The state’s health commissioner rejected the report’s conclusion of an “undercount,” saying that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration has clearly categorized COVID-19 deaths by place of death, and therefore the state has not specified which hospital deaths were actually nursing home residents. 

In Chicago, in-person classes  for pre-kindergarten and special education students were canceled again on Thursday as a labor dispute between teachers and school officials over the district's COVID-19 safety plan remained unresolved.

Nationwide, the US has counted over 25.7 million cases and more than 433,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

President Joe Biden moved to make it easier for Americans to buy health insurance during the pandemic, reopening the federal Obamacare marketplace.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is evaluating a request from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide help in administering COVID-19 vaccines, a spokesman said on Thursday.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told "CBS Evening News" that FEMA was working with the Pentagon to use 10,000 troops and open up 100 centers across the country to increase the availability of vaccines.

Ecuador

Ecuador's Ministry of Public Health on Thursday reported two new cases of the new coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom (UK), adding to four other cases that were confirmed earlier this month.

A woman walks past a coronavirus-themed mural promoting the use of face mask in public. In Sebokeng, Vereeniging, South Africa, on Jan 28, 2021. (THEMBA HADEBE / AP)

Africa

The discovery of new COVID-19 variants in several African countries risk prolonging the second wave in the continent and overwhelm its already fragile public health systems, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday.

Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, raised alarm over the spread of new coronavirus strains that are highly contagious and could undermine efforts to flatten the curve in the continent.

The COVID-19 variant that was first identified in South Africa is driving record numbers of infections and deaths as it spreads across the region, the WHO said

The variant that was first identified in South Africa is driving record numbers of infections and deaths as it spreads across the region, the WHO said.

According to the WHO, the 501 Y.V2 variant is behind the unprecedented spike in infections in Africa's second-largest economy. The highly transmissible virus strain has also been identified in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia.

Meanwhile, African countries that have confirmed cases involving the variant that was first detected in Britain include The Gambia and Nigeria.

Moeti said that flattening the COVID-19 curve in Africa could be a mirage unless countries ramp up efforts to sequence, identify and report new variants alongside strengthening public health-based containment measures.

"In addition to new variants, COVID-19 fatigue and the aftermath of year-end gatherings risk powering a perfect storm and driving up Africa's second wave and overwhelming health facilities," Moeti said.

Africa has reported a total of 3,494,117 confirmed cases and 87,937 deaths as of Thursday, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The African Union (AU) has secured another 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong said. Nkengasong said the bloc would get the shots from the Serum Institute of India (SII).

ALSO READ: WHO chief: Vaccine nationalism could prolong pandemic

Brazil

Researchers in southern Brazil said they have discovered patients infected with two different strains of the new coronavirus simultaneously.

The researchers, who posted their findings Wednesday on medical website medRxiv, said their study would be the first in the world to confirm co-infection with two strains of the coronavirus. The study has yet to be published in a scientific journal and has not been peer reviewed.

The patients, both in their 30s, were infected in late November with the P.2 variant of coronavirus identified in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the B.1.1.28 lineage, and simultaneously tested positive for a second variant of the virus. The patients had mild symptoms and did not require hospitalization.

The findings come amid concerns about the growing number of variants in the country. 

Brazil registered 61,811 new coronavirus cases and 1,386 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to 9,058,687 with 221,547 deaths, according to the health ministry.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who says he won't take any COVID-19 shot, vowed to quickly inoculate all Brazilians. However, he dismissed social distancing measures, suggesting that people will need to learn how to live with the virus. “This issue of COVID will continue for life,” he said in a weekly live webcast. He said efforts to reimpose restrictive measures will “lead nowhere”.

Meanwhile, Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said on Thursday that data on the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University so far shows that it is safe for elderly patients, after Germany recommended it be given only to those under 65.

J&J

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) initially will deliver about 2 million doses of its one-shot COVID-19 vaccine when it receives emergency-use authorization in the US, according to a Government Accountability Office report. 

A spokesman for J&J said in an email that the company expects to supply 100 million doses to the US government in the first half of the year. 

Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine generated strong protection against COVID-19 in a large, late-stage trial, raising hopes that it can rapidly reshape a stumbling immunization campaign.

In the more than 44,000-person study, the vaccine prevented 66 percent of moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, according to a company statement on Friday. And it was particularly effective at stopping severe disease, preventing 85 percent of severe infections and 100 percent of hospitalizations and deaths.

Bolivia

Russia sent 20,000 doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to Bolivia, where President Luis Arce was waiting to greet the delivery in La Paz.

Bolivia will be the second Latin American country to roll out the Russian vaccine

"Starting tomorrow, the distribution begins. There are 20,000 vaccines and two doses for each person," presidential spokesman Jorge Richter told reporters. "They will be for the sectors that are most exposed and at the front line of contagion."

Arce wrote on Twitter that the 20,000 doses his country was receiving was more than originally agreed for delivery in January. He said the vaccines would be administered to frontline health workers.

Bolivia has had over 200,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 10,000 deaths.

Argentina

Meanwhile, a plane carrying 240,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine arrived in Argentina Thursday.

Argentina had already taken delivery of two consignments, each with 300,000 shots, although it has received far less of the Russian vaccine than it had originally hoped.

The Argentine deliveries fall short of the 5 million doses health authorities had said they expected to receive in January from Russia.

Argentina has administered 272,323 people with the first dose of the Sputnik V vaccine and 45,710 people with the second dose, ministry figures show. 

There have been 1.9 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and about 47,500 deaths in Argentina.

France

The number of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Moderna that France expects to receive in February will be 25 percent below the amount previously anticipated, the French health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement came as some French regions reported supply problems. A shortage of COVID-19 vaccines has forced Paris and the Hauts-de-France region, as well as the region around Burgundy area – that together account for a third of the French population – to postpone giving out first doses, a source familiar with the discussion, and health officials, said on the same day.

French health authorities reported 23,770 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours on Thursday, bringing the cumulative caseload to 3,130,629. Deaths rose by 344 to 74,800.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said earlier new variants of the coronavirus were circulating more widely every week and that the tighter curfew put in place almost two weeks ago had not managed to curb the spread of the virus.

UN chief

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, according to a report published on the UN official website.

The UN chief said on Twitter that he was fortunate and grateful to get the shot, and urged the international community to ensure that vaccines become available to everyone on an equitable basis.

"With this pandemic, none of us are safe until all of us are safe," he wrote.

Guterres, 71, received the jab at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in the Bronx, a few miles uptown from the UN headquarters in New York, according to the report.

In this photo released by the Royal Palace, Morocco's King Mohammed VI (right) receives a COVID-19 vaccine at the Royal Palace in Fes, Morocco, as he launches his country's coronavirus vaccination campaign, Jan 28, 2021. (PHOTO / MOROCCAN ROYAL PALACE VIA AP)

Morocco

Morocco started a national coronavirus vaccination campaign on Thursday after receiving vaccine shipments from AstraZeneca and Sinopharm, state media reported.

Inaugurating the campaign, King Mohammed was given the vaccine at his palace in Fez, the state news agency MAP reported.

Morocco has received 2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and 500,000 doses of a vaccine made by China’s Sinopharm. It began distributing them to centres around the country this week.

The palace said vaccinations would be available to all Moroccans over the age of 17. Health, security and teaching staff will receive the first shots.

On the same day the vaccination drive kicked off, Morocco reported 756 new cases and another 17 deaths, bringing the cumulative total to 469,139 and the death toll to 8,224.

Algeria

Algeria will receive its first shipment of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine on Friday and plans to start its vaccination campaign the following day, Communication Minister Ammar Belhimer said.

The vaccine will be given first to healthcare workers, the elderly and people with chronic diseases, state media cited him as saying, without giving details on the number of doses.

"More shipments will arrive from China, India and other countries," he said on Thursday.

Algeria on Thursday reported 251 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths, bringing the total number of infections in the North African country to 106,610 with 2,881 fatalities.

Tunisia

The Tunisian Health Ministry on Thursday reported 2,028 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections in the country to 204,351.

The death toll went up by 62 to 6,508, the ministry said in a statement.

Germany

Germany aims to offer coronavirus vaccinations to all people aged at least 80 in the first quarter as it has already distributed 3.5 million vaccine doses, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Friday.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 14,022 to 2,192,850, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday. The reported death toll rose by 839 to 55,752, the tally showed.

On Thursday, Germany's vaccine committee recommended that AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine should only be given to people aged between 18 and 64.

"There are currently insufficient data available to assess the vaccine efficacy from 65 years of age," the German committee, also known as STIKO, said in a draft recommendation made available by the German health ministry on Thursday.

Switzerland

Moderna has warned Switzerland that its COVID-19 vaccine deliveries would be delayed, the Swiss health ministry said on Thursday, leading to February shortfalls that the country expects the US company to make up in March.

"The next shipments from Pfizer and Moderna arrive in the first week of February," a Swiss Federal Health Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.

Switzerland, which has received a combined 531,600 vaccines so far from Moderna and from Pfizer and BioNTech, said it still expects first-quarter vaccine deliveries to meet their contractual requirements.

Italy

Italy reported 492 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, up from 467 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 14,372 from 15,204.

Italy has now registered 87,381 deaths linked to COVID-19 and 2.516 million cases to date.

Patients in hospital with COVID-19 – not including those in intensive care – stood at 20,778 on Thursday, compared with 21,161 a day earlier.

There were 102 new admissions to intensive care units, against 115 the day before. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 2,288, down from 2,352 on Wednesday.

Romania

The police found one more dead body in the hospital ward that caught fire early Friday in Bucharest, capital of Romania, increasing the death toll to five.

 "I have this confirmation for the fifth victim. I can confirm that the charred body was found in the bathroom," Minister of Internal Affairs Lucian Bode was quoted as saying by the official news agency Agerpres.

The fire broke out in a ward of some 30 square meters on the ground floor of a ward building in the National Institute for Infectious Diseases Matei Bals, the most important COVID-19 designated hospital in the country. A total of four wards were affected before the fire was extinguished.

Matei Bals is one of the largest and most used COVID-19 hospitals in the country. The hospital building where the blaze broke out was built in 1953 and had been completely renovated, its manager said.

The evacuated patients had medium to serious COVID-19 infections and most were using oxygen, the hospital's manager said. About 44 of them have been sent to other COVID-19 hospitals across Bucharest, and the remaining patients were re-located to other buildings at Matei Bals.

Nearly 7,700 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals across Romania as of Friday, including 989 in intensive care units. The country has reported 721,513 coronavirus cases and 18,105 deaths.

Russia

Russia reported 19,238 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, including 2,799 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 3,813,048 since the pandemic began.

Authorities said 534 people had died of COVID in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 72,185.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia was gradually receding, but that Russians should not let down their guard.

The government said the country Russia has decided to resume flights to and from Greece and Singapore starting from Feb 8 as the spread of the coronavirus infection has slowed. It said the planes will fly twice a week from Moscow to Athens, while there will be three flights per week to Singapore from the Russian capital.

The government also said that other than Moscow, several Russian airports, including in Astrakhan, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk, will resume some international flights from Feb 8.

The head of Russia's consumer safety watchdog said that around 20-25 percent of Russians have COVID-19 antibodies, TASS news agency reported.

Spain

Spain recorded 34,899 new coronavirus infections and 515 deaths from COVID-19 in the past day, health ministry data showed on Thursday, with the 14-day incidence dropping slightly for the first time in three weeks.

To date, Spain has totaled more than 2.7 million cases with more than 57,800 deaths.

Faced with dwindling stocks, authorities in Madrid and the northern region of Cantabria have stopped vaccinating new people to focus on administering second shots to those who have already received a first dose.

The supply crunch is being felt in many parts of Spain. At Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, on the Mediterranean coast, retired nurses have been volunteering to help vaccinate health workers but are now focusing solely on second doses.

Data released on Wednesday showed Spain had administered some 1.4 million doses, about 78 percent of its current stocks.

Spain made clear on Thursday it supported the EU's handling of a shortfall in COVID-19 vaccines after a leaked document suggested the health ministry was blaming Brussels.

Denmark

Denmark made another US$27.7 billion in financial aid available on Friday to businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, a day after the government extended lockdown restrictions until March.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Thursday that COVID-19 restrictions currently in force in Denmark will be extended until Feb 28.

"The Statens Serum Institut (SSI) assesses that the new mutation of coronavirus is spreading, even with the restrictions we have in Denmark. We can not stop the spread, but we must do everything we can to slow it down," Frederiksen said at a press conference.

The extension requires restaurants, shops, malls and liberal service professions, such as hairdressers, to remain closed. A ban on groups of more than five people gathering will also remain in force.

However, a previous rule that required the youngest schoolchildren to remain at home to receive online tuition may be revised soon.

According to the SSI, Denmark registered 668 new COVID-19 infections and a 21 deaths in the past 24 hours. To date, the country has reported 197,208 cases and 2,071 deaths.

Latvia

The Latvian government on Thursday approved a plan aimed at immunizing 70 percent of the country's adult population against COVID-19 by the end of summer.

The plan provides for drawing up a digital list of people voluntarily applying for vaccination, a centralized vaccination calendar and a centralized delivery and management of the vaccine supplies, as well as communication with the public.

The order of prioritized social groups remains unchanged: immunization of medics, which began at the end of 2020, will continue throughout February, but jabs will be given also to residents and employees of Latvia's nursing homes and some other senior citizens.

Vaccination of other prioritized groups is expected to begin in April, and starting in June, the COVID-19 vaccines would be made available to the general public.

Canada

Canada said on Thursday it expects a further delay in Pfizer Inc's COVID-19 vaccine deliveries in coming weeks, prompting protests from provincial leaders in charge of administering inoculations.

Ottawa, which had initially said Pfizer would deliver 4 million doses by the end of March, told the provinces on Thursday it would now be 3.5 million doses.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Pfizer "has let us down tremendously" and called for "a loud voice to make sure we get our fair share of vaccines."

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government is still on track to inoculate every Canadian by the end of September, and that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been speaking directly with vaccine manufacturers.

Canada has recorded a total of 19,533 COVID-19 deaths and 761,226 infections so far.

Ukraine

Ukraine's parliament on Friday approved a bill intended to speed up the approval of COVID-19 vaccines, which also bans the approval of vaccines made in Russia.

The government has said it expects to receive 100,000 to 200,000 doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer of the US and Germany's BioNTech under the global COVAX scheme in February.

No vaccine has yet been approved in Ukraine but authorities have repeatedly said Kiev will not approve or use vaccines from Russia, with which it is at loggerheads.

Greece

Inhabitants of remote Greek islands received the COVID-19 vaccine this week as the government rolled out its inoculation campaign to include tiny villages, some with no more than a couple of dozens inhabitants.

Many of the islands have been shielded by distance and life has continued relatively undisturbed by the pandemic. The vaccinations are aimed at ensuring that continues before the summer months brings in a hoped-for influx of tourists.

Greece on Friday postponed plans to reopen all high schools next month following a fresh rise in COVID-19 infections, saying schools in critical "red zones" would continue with distance learning.

Athens said last week it would let high schools reopen on Feb 1 for the first time in more than two months as pressure on its public health system had eased in the last few weeks.

Parts of Northern Greece and West Attica are the regions suffering most from a fresh surge in COVID-19 cases, which have doubled since the beginning of the week.

On Thursday, health authorities reported 716 new coronavirus cases and 18 deaths, bringing total infections to 154,796 since the first case was detected in February last year.

Cuba

Cuba has lost its first health worker due to COVID-19 amid the government's efforts to contain the sharpest rise in infections since the pandemic began, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Thursday.

"A 49-year-old male doctor from Havana died of COVID-19," said the ministry, as it reported four additional COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the death toll to 208.

The ministry also said that 666 new cases were recorded, down from 825 a day earlier, taking the nationwide tally to 24,105

According to the ministry, January 2021 has been the worst month in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cuba, with 62 deaths and 12,049 infections registered so far.

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