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Texas Clinical Trial to Examine Ivermectin in Fight Against COVID Symptoms
A Texas university clinical trial is examining the effectiveness of ivermectin in fighting against COVID-19 symptoms, with hopes of determining if the controversial drug can be a helpful tool in combating the pandemic.
The National Institutes of Health granted Texas Tech University’s Health Sciences Center El Paso $1.7 million to spearhead clinical trials that include two projects: ACTIV-6, a nationwide study that includes ivermectin, and a local initiative planned by the university, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
CDC Endorses Booster Rollout, OKs Mixing Shots
Millions more Americans can get a COVID-19 booster and choose a different company’s vaccine for that next shot, federal health officials said Thursday.
Certain people who received Pfizer vaccinations months ago already are eligible for a booster and now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says specific Moderna and Johnson & Johnson recipients qualify, too. And in a bigger change, the agency is allowing the flexibility of “mixing and matching” that extra dose regardless of which type people received first.
The Food and Drug Administration had already authorized such an expansion of the nation’s booster campaign on Wednesday, and it was also endorsed Thursday by a CDC advisory panel. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky had the final word on who gets the extra doses.
Americans Can Mix and Match COVID Boosters but Original Vaccine Recommended — Fauci
Americans can choose a COVID-19 booster shot that is different from their original inoculation but the recommendation is to stick with the vaccine they got first if it is available, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday.
“It’s generally recommended that you get the booster that is the original regimen that you got in the first place,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with CNN.
Norway Opts Not to Give 12 to 15 Year Olds Second Vaccine Doses Yet
Norway will hold off giving children aged 12-15 a second dose of a vaccine against COVID-19 until it has gathered more research, partly due to a rare side effect involving inflammation of the heart, health authorities said on Friday.
The health ministry said there was no urgency given that children have a low risk of falling seriously ill from COVID-19 and because a single dose of a vaccine offered a protection rate of 85% against the disease for up to 16 weeks.
“A second vaccine dose is also linked with a higher risk of pericarditis and myocarditis, especially among young men and boys,” the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said in a statement.
Pfizer Vaccine: The One Side Effect More Common After Booster and It May Last for 8 Days
To counter waning immunity ahead of winter, millions of Brits are being offered a booster COVID vaccine to top up their protection against coronavirus. According to safety and immune response data analysed by the FDA, the Pfizer booster vaccine engenders a side effect that’s more commonly seen in the booster shot and it can last up to eight days.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the regulatory body in the US, analysed safety and immune response data from a subset of participants from the original clinical trial of the Pfizer vaccine.
Curiously, one side effect was seen to be more common following the booster shot than previous doses. “Of note, swollen lymph nodes in the underarm were observed more frequently following the booster dose than after the primary two-dose series,” notes the FDA.
Young Men Under 30 Who Receive the Moderna COVID-19 Jab Are More Likely To Develop Rare Heart Inflammation Than Those That Receive the Pfizer Shot, CDC Reveals
Young men who receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are at higher risk of developing a rare case of heart inflammation than those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, researchers revealed on Thursday. Researchers revealed the data at a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) advisory committee to discuss approval of booster doses for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shot.
A CDC official presented data that showed young men under the age of 30 who receive the Moderna vaccine have experienced a slight uptick in myocarditis and pericarditis cases. However, officials stand by the safety of the vaccine, and still recommend it for use as the benefits heavily outweigh the potential risks.
Health officials in Nordic countries have made a different choice, though, with Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden all restricting use of the Moderna jab among young people.
China Is Pushing a New COVID Origin Theory: Maine Lobsters
In mid-September, Marcel Schliebs, a disinformation researcher at the University of Oxford who had been tracking messaging that Chinese diplomats and state media spread on Twitter for 18 months, spotted the emergence of a surprising coronavirus origin theory.
Zha Liyou, the Chinese consul general in Kolkata, India, tweeted an unfounded claim that COVID-19 could have been imported to China from the United States through a batch of Maine lobsters shipped to a seafood market in Wuhan in November 2019. It marks the latest in a series of theories that have been pushed by pro-China accounts since the start of the pandemic.
