Tag Archives: South Africa

U.S. to ease COVID-19 travel restrictions for Chinese students

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will ease travel restrictions allowing Chinese students to come to the United States for classes this fall and from other countries where most non-U.S. citizens are barred because of the coronavirus pandemic, government officials told Reuters.

The U.S. State Department is set to announce later on Tuesday it is expanding its national interest exemptions to cover students and academics around the world starting on Aug. 1 after it made the change in March for European students, officials said.

The United States has barred most non-U.S. citizens from the United States who have been in China, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and most of Europe within the prior two weeks. Now students from all those countries will be eligible to enter the United States in a few months’ time.

The largest number of international students in the United States are from China. About 35% of international students in the United States in the 2019-20 school year were from China, according to the International Education Exchange (IEE), nearly twice as high as the second highest, India.

In the 2019-20 academic year 372,000 Chinese nationals attended universities and colleges in the United States, the IEE said in a November 2020 report.

In January 2020 then President Donald Trump first imposed the restrictions barring nearly all non-U.S. citizens who were in China from entering the United States.

U.S. colleges and universities have been urging the State Department to take the step before international students had to make enrollment decisions.

The American Council on Education had pressed the administration of President Joe Biden to act quickly, saying in a letter last month the administration could “deliver a welcoming message to current and prospective international students, which can help restore the U.S. as a destination of choice, as well as supporting an important economic activity as the U.S. economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Another big issue has been the requirement that first-time student visa applicants have in-person interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates.

The group cited a study that the overall economic impact generated by international students had declined by $1.8 billion during the 2019-2020 academic year, from $40.5 billion in the prior year.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)

Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 3 million amid new infections resurgence

By Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – Coronavirus-related deaths worldwide crossed 3 million on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the latest global resurgence of COVID-19 infections is challenging vaccination efforts across the globe.

Worldwide COVID-19 deaths are rising once again, especially in Brazil and India. Health officials blame more infectious variants that were first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, along with public fatigue with lockdowns and other restrictions.

According to a Reuters tally, it took more than a year for the global coronavirus death toll to reach 2 million. The next 1 million deaths were added in about three months.

Brazil is leading the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported and accounts for one in every four deaths worldwide each day, according to a Reuters analysis.

The World Health Organization acknowledged the nation’s dire condition due to coronavirus, saying the country is in a very critical condition with an overwhelmed healthcare system.

“Indeed there is a very serious situation going on in Brazil right now, where we have a number of states in critical condition,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove told a briefing last Thursday, adding that many hospital intensive care units are more than 90% full.

India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections on Monday, becoming the second nation after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day.

India’s worst-affected state, Maharashtra on Monday began shutting shopping malls, cinemas, bars, restaurants, and places of worship, as hospitals are being overrun by patients.

The European region, which includes 51 countries, has the highest total number of deaths at nearly 1.1 million.

Five European countries including the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Italy and Germany constitute about 60% of Europe’s total coronavirus-related deaths.

The United States has the highest number of deaths of any country at the world at 555,000 and accounts for about 19% of all deaths due to COVID-19 in the world. Cases have risen for the last three weeks but health officials believe the nation’s rapid vaccination campaign may prevent a rise in deaths. A third of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine.

At least 370.3 million people or nearly 4.75% of the global population have received a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine by Sunday, according to latest figures from research and data provider firm Our World in Data.

However, the World Health Organization is urging countries to donate more doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines to help meet vaccination targets for the most vulnerable in poorer countries.

 

India’s daily virus cases breach 100,000; mutants, behavior blamed

By Neha Arora and Rama Venkat

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections on Monday, becoming the second country after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day, as politicians stage massive election rallies raising fears of further spreading the virus.

Hospitals in the worst affected state, Maharashtra, are being overrun by patients. India’s richest state, home to its commercial capital Mumbai and numerous industries, reported a record 57,074 new cases overnight.

The country’s daily infections have risen about 12 fold since hitting a multi-month low in early February, when authorities eased most restrictions and people largely stopped wearing masks and following social distancing.

With 103,558 new infections, India has now reported 12.6 million cases, the highest after the United States and Brazil, data from the health ministry showed. Deaths jumped by 478, still one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, raising the total to 165,101.

India has recorded the most number of infections in the past week anywhere in the world. More infectious variants of the virus may have played a role in the second surge, some epidemiologists say.

“The new variant, or variants of concern, probably explains a lot of it, rather than simplistic explanation of behavior,” said Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Center of Social Medicine & Community Health in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

India has found hundreds of cases of the virus variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

Subhash Salunke, a former WHO official who advises Maharashtra on its COVID-19 strategy, said cases in the state would continue to rise for another couple of weeks. He said a way out was vaccinating all adults in its hardest-hit cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Nashik.

“If we start doing this, by the end of April we will see a downward trend,” he said.

VACCINE RAMP-UP

India, the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, has injected 77 million doses at home since starting its campaign in the middle of January – the third highest after the United States and China.

India’s per capita COVID-19 vaccinations, however, are lower than many other countries, including that of more populated China that started giving shots to its citizens much earlier.

India is currently vaccinating only people above the age of 45, having covered health and front-line workers first with the AstraZeneca shot and a government-backed one.

In a meeting held by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, officials discussed raising the country’s vaccine output further. The government has in recent weeks slowed vaccine exports, after shipping more than 65 million doses.

“It was highlighted that all efforts are underway to secure adequate quantities of vaccines to meet the rising domestic requirements as well as to meet the genuine needs of other countries,” his office said in a statement.

Though cases have risen exponentially in nearly a dozen states, politicians and ministers are still addressing election rallies attended by tens of thousands of mask-less people jostling for space.

The health minister in the northeastern state of Assam, currently voting to elect a new government, was ridiculed on social media on the weekend after saying there was no need for masks in his state and that wearing one hurts businesses like beauty parlors.

Maharashtra will start shutting shopping malls, cinemas, bars, restaurants and places of worship from Monday evening. Authorities will also impose a complete lockdown at weekends, as experts worried about a shortage of critical-care beds in hospitals, especially in its smaller cities.

The rise in cases has pulled down the stock market.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat Bengaluru and Neha Arora in New Delhi; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry)

Analysis-In mutant variants, has the coronavirus shown its best tricks?

By Kate Kelland and Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – The rapid rise in different parts of the world of deadly, more infectious coronavirus variants that share new mutations is leading scientists to ask a critical question – has the SARS-CoV-2 virus shown its best cards?

New variants first detected in such far-flung countries as Brazil, South Africa and Britain cropped up spontaneously within a few months late last year. All three share some of the same mutations in the important spike region of the virus used to enter and infect cells.

These include the E484k mutation, nicknamed “Eek” by some scientists for its apparent ability to evade natural immunity from previous COVID-19 infection and to reduce protection offered by current vaccines – all of which target the spike protein.

The appearance of similar mutations, independent of one another, springing up in different parts of the globe shows the coronavirus is undergoing “convergent evolution,” according to a dozen scientists interviewed by Reuters.

Although it will continue to mutate, immunologists and virologists said they suspect this coronavirus has a fixed number of moves in its arsenal.

The long-term impact for the virus’ survival, and whether a limit on the number of mutations makes it less dangerous, remains to be seen.

“It is plausible that this virus has a relatively limited number of antibody escape mutations it can make before it has played all of its cards, so to speak,” said Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego.

That could enable drugmakers to stay on top of the virus as they develop booster vaccines directly targeting current variants, while governments struggle to tame a pandemic that has killed nearly 3 million people.

The idea that the virus could have a limited number of mutations has been circulating among experts since early February, and gathered momentum with the posting of a paper showing the spontaneous appearance of seven variants in the United States, all in the same region of the spike protein.

EVOLUTION, IN REAL TIME

The process of different species independently evolving the same traits that improve survival odds is central to evolutionary biology. The vast scope of the coronavirus pandemic – with 127.3 million infections globally – allows scientists to observe it in real time.

“If you wanted to sort of write a little textbook about viral evolution, it’s happening right now,” Dr. Francis Collins, a geneticist and director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, said in an interview.

Scientists saw the process on a smaller scale in 2018 as a dangerous H7N9 bird flu virus in China appeared to begin adapting to human hosts. But no pathogen has evolved under such global scrutiny as SARS-CoV-2.

Wendy Barclay, a virologist and professor at Imperial College London and a member of a scientific advisory panel to the UK government, said she is struck by the “amazing amount of convergent evolution we’re seeing” with SARS-CoV-2.

“There are these infamous mutations – E484K, N501Y and K417N – which all three variants of concern are accumulating. That, added together, is very strong biology that this is the best version of this virus in the given moment,” Barclay said.

It’s not that this coronavirus is especially clever, scientists said. Each time it infects people it makes copies of itself, and with each copy it can make mistakes. While some mistakes are insignificant one-offs, the ones that give the coronavirus a survival advantage tend to persist.

“If it keeps happening over and over again, it must be providing some real growth advantage to this virus,” Collins said.

Some specialists believe the virus may have a limited number of mutations it can sustain before compromising its fitness – or changing so much it is no longer the same virus.

“I don’t think it’s going to reinvent itself with extra teeth,” said Ian Jones, a professor of virology at Britain’s University of Reading.

“If it had an unlimited number of tricks…we would see an unlimited number of mutants, but we don’t,” said Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York.

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM

Scientists remain cautious, however, and say predicting how a virus will mutate is challenging. If there are limits on how the coronavirus can evolve, that would simplify things for vaccine developers.

Novavax Inc is adapting its vaccine to target the South African variant that in lab tests appeared to render current vaccines less effective. Chief Executive Stan Erck said the virus can only change so much and still bind to human hosts, and hopes the vaccine will “cover the vast majority of strains that are circulating.”

If not, Novavax can continue matching its vaccine to new variants, he said.

Researchers are tracking the variants through data-sharing platforms such as the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Flu Data, which houses a huge trove of coronavirus genomes.

Scientists recently identified seven U.S. coronavirus variants with mutations all occurring in the same location in a key portion of the virus, offering more evidence of convergent evolution.

Other teams are conducting experiments that expose the virus to antibodies to force it to mutate. In many cases, the same mutations, including the infamous E484K, appeared.

Such evidence adds to cautious optimism that mutations appear to share many of the same traits.

But the world must continue tracking changes in the virus, experts said, and choke off its ability to mutate by reducing transmission through vaccinations and measures that limit its spread.

“It’s shown a very strong set of opening moves,” Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biology specialist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said of this coronavirus. “We don’t know what the end game is going to look like.”

New WTO chief calls for tripling of vaccine production

By Emma Farge and Philip Blenkinsop

GENEVA (Reuters) – The new chief of the World Trade Organization (WTO) urged its member states on Monday to work with pharmaceutical companies to license more COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing in developing countries in order to triple global production.

“People are dying in poor countries,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on her first day in office. “The world has a normal capacity of production of 3.5 billion doses of vaccines and we now seek to manufacture 10 billion doses.”

Her call comes as a group of developing countries led by South Africa and India seek to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, a move opposed by the United States, the European Union and other wealthy nations.

Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO’s first female and first African director-general, said that, while this debate continued, companies must be encouraged to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in developing countries.

In a speech to the WTO’s 164 member states, she said there was an upcoming world manufacturing convention and urged the start of dialogue with manufacturers associations.

After a long campaign that was derailed in the latter stages by a Trump administration veto, the 66-year-old Nigerian was confirmed as boss last month, pledging to “forget business as usual” at the WTO, which is struggling to strike new deals and whose arbitration functions are paralyzed.

“READY TO GO”

“It feels great. I am coming into one of the most important institutions in the world and we have a lot of work to do. I feel ready to go,” Okonjo-Iweala told a reporter on arrival at the WTO’s lakeside Geneva headquarters where she donned a mask and elbow-bumped officials.

The former Nigerian finance and foreign minister aims to revive the global trade watchdog ahead of a major year-end meeting, saying she feared the world was leaving the WTO behind.

WTO delegates agreed to hold the next major ministerial conference in Geneva from Nov. 29.

The meeting was originally due to be held in Kazakhstan in 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. Okonjo-Iweala has said she hopes ministers at the year-end meeting can finalize deals on ending fisheries subsidies and reforms for the WTO’s top appeals body.

Since the WTO director-general holds few executive powers, some analysts question her ability to revive the body in the face of so many challenges, including persistent U.S.-China trade tensions and growing protectionism heightened by the pandemic.

(Reporting by Emma Farge and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; editing by Ed Osmond and Gareth Jones)

Governments support AstraZeneca shot after South Africa halts roll-out

By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – Western governments rushed to offer support for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination after South Africa halted its roll-out when research showed it offered minimal protection against mild infection from a variant spreading there.

The arrival of vaccines has given hope that scientists can tame a pandemic that has killed 2.3 million people worldwide. But if vaccines are less effective against new variants, they may need to be tweaked and people may need booster shots.

South Africa announced its pause after researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Oxford found that the AstraZeneca vaccine provided only minimal protection against mild or moderate infection from the B.1.351 variant, now the dominant form of the virus in that country.

The research is not yet peer reviewed and did not provide data on older people most likely to die or need hospitalization. There was no data on whether the vaccine would prevent severe illness, and researchers said that was still possible.

“This study confirms that the pandemic coronavirus will find ways to continue to spread in vaccinated populations, as expected,” said Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial.

“But, taken with the promising results from other studies in South Africa using a similar viral vector, vaccines may continue to ease the toll on health care systems by preventing severe disease.”

SERIOUS INFECTIONS

French Health Minister Olivier Veran voiced support for the AstraZeneca vaccine, arguing it provided sufficient protection against “nearly all the variants” of the virus.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said current evidence suggests all three vaccines approved in Europe – which include AstraZeneca – provided effective protection against serious infections.

Britain and Australia urged calm, citing evidence that the vaccines prevented grave illness and death, while AstraZeneca said it believed its vaccine could protect against severe disease.

“We think that both the vaccines that we’re currently using are effective in, as I say, in stopping serious disease and death,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters. Britain also uses the Pfizer shot.

“We also think in particular in the case of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine that there’s good evidence that it is stopping transmission, as well, I think 67% reduction in transmission.”

Australia is expected approve the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine within days and expressed confidence in it.

“There is currently no evidence to indicate a reduction in the effectiveness of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines in preventing severe disease and death. That is the fundamental task, to protect the health,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said.

But if vaccines do not work as effectively as hoped against new and emerging variants, then the world could be facing a much longer – and more expensive – battle against the virus than previously thought.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was the big hope for Africa as it is cheap and easy to store and transport. South Africa, which had hoped to roll out the AstraZeneca shot this month, is storing around 1 million doses it has received from the Serum Institute of India.

The B.1.351 variant dominant in South Africa, also known as 20I/501Y.V2, is also circulating in at least 40 other countries, including the United States. Other major variants include one first found in Britain, known as 20I/501Y.V1, and one found in Brazil known as P.1.

Austria warned against non-essential travel to its Alpine province of Tyrol because of an outbreak of the South African variant there. Cases were also detected north of Paris, forcing one school to close.

VACCINE SHOCK

An analysis of infections by the South African variant showed there was only a 22% lower risk of developing mild-to-moderate COVID-19, more than 14 days after being vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot, versus those given a placebo.

Protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalization or death could not be assessed in the study of around 2,000 volunteers who had a median age of 31, as the target population were at such low risk.

Professor Shabir Madhi, lead investigator on the AstraZeneca trial in South Africa, said the vaccine’s similarity to another produced by Johnson & Johnson, which reduced severe disease by 85%, suggested it would still prevent serious illness or death.

“There’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age group demographic that I address of severe disease,” he told BBC radio.

Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, said efforts were under way to develop a new generation of booster shot vaccines that will allow protection against emerging variants.

“This is the same issue that is faced by all of the vaccine developers, and we will continue to monitor the emergence of new variants that arise in readiness for a future strain change.”

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; editing by Michael Holden, Angus MacSwan, Nick Macfie and Giles Elgood)

White House confirms Biden signing new South Africa travel restrictions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House confirmed President Joe Biden is signing an order on Monday imposing a ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa starting Saturday.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also confirmed Biden will re-impose an entry ban on nearly all non-U.S. travelers who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders that was set to expire Tuesday.

“With the pandemic worsening and more contagious variants spreading, this isn’t the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” Psaki said at a news briefing.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)

Moderna plans trial of altered COVID-19 vaccine booster to address South Africa variant

(Reuters) – Moderna said on Monday it plans to start clinical trials of an altered booster version of its COVID-19 vaccine aimed at the South African variant after tests showed its authorized vaccine may produce a diminished antibody response.

It will also test an additional booster shot of its authorized vaccine in trials to see if it boosts antibody reaction against the South Africa variant. The current regimen is for two shots four weeks apart.

The company said in a press release that it was being cautious and that the two-dose regimen of the vaccine was still expected to be protective against the South African and other variants detected to date.

The company said the vaccine did not see any impact from the U.K. variant – which has been shown to be more transmissible – in the tests.

The company said it plans to publish data from its tests against the South African and U.K. variants on the website bioRxiv.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

New COVID-19 variant defeats plasma treatment, may reduce vaccine efficacy

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa can evade the antibodies that attack it in treatments using blood plasma from previously recovered patients, and may reduce the efficacy of the current line of vaccines, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers are racing to establish whether the vaccines currently being rolled out across the globe are effective against the so-called 501Y.V2 variant, identified by South African genomics experts late last year in Nelson Mandela Bay.

“This lineage exhibits complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,” the team of scientists from three South African universities working with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) wrote in a paper published in the bioRxiv journal.

“Furthermore, 501Y.V2 shows substantial or complete escape from neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19 convalescent plasma,” they wrote, adding that their conclusions “highlight the prospect of reinfection … and may foreshadow reduced efficacy of current spike-based vaccines.”

The 501Y.V2 variant is 50% more infectious than previous ones, South African researchers said this week. It has already spread to at least 20 countries since being reported to the World Health Organization in late December.

It is one of several new variants discovered in recent months, including others first found in England and Brazil.

The variant is the main driver of South Africa’s second wave of COVID-19 infections, which hit a new daily peak above 21,000 cases earlier this month, far above the first wave, before falling to about 12,000 a day.

Convalescent blood plasma from previous patients has not been shown to be effective when administered to severely ill patients requiring intensive care for COVID-19, but it is approved in several countries as an emergency measure.

British scientists and politicians have expressed concern that vaccines currently being deployed or in development could be less effective against the variant.

The paper said it remained to be seen how effective current vaccines were against 501Y.V2, which would only be determined by large-scale clinical trials. But results showed the need for new vaccines to be designed to tackle the evolving threat, it said.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Peter Graff)

Blast-rocked South African oil refinery shut down for investigations

By Rogan Ward and Wendell Roelf

DURBAN (Reuters) – South Africa’s second-largest crude oil refinery, the Engen plant in Durban, has been shut down to allow investigators a chance to find out the cause of a “fire incident” earlier on Friday, Engen said.

Engen, which operates the 120,000 barrel per day plant and is majority owned by Malaysia’s Petronas, said a fire broke out at around 0510 GMT and was extinguished by 0645 GMT.

“Engen is currently assessing its overall bulk fuels supply and demand position and implementing immediate mitigations to manage inventory and product supply requirements,” Engen said in an update.

Local emergency services said seven people were injured, although Engen said no injuries were recorded and all refinery personnel were accounted for.

“I saw a massive fireball at the center of the refinery with thick black smoke billowing from it,” Durban resident Shane Lloyd Pretorius told Reuters.

Engen said in a statement that the cause of the fire was under investigation.

A Reuters witness at the scene saw several fire engines spraying foam onto the affected part of the refinery, as well as ambulances, metropolitan police and national police standing by.

Africa’s most industrialized economy has six refineries, four using crude oil and two synthetic fuel as feedstock. It is a net importer of petroleum products.

The country’s third-biggest crude oil refinery, a 100,000 bpd facility operated by Astron Energy in Cape Town, also suffered an explosion earlier this year.

Top refinery SAPREF, which is also located in Durban and is a joint venture between BP and Shell, said the incident at Engen’s facility had no impact on its operations.

The Engen Refinery and SAPREF form part of a major petrochemical hub on the east coast close to Durban’s port.

(Additional reporting by Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Ng Yi Shu in Singapore; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Himani Sarkar, David Evans, Alexander Smith, Kirsten Donovan)