COVID digest: Africa gets 100 million Moderna vaccine doses

The African Union (AU) said it would buy up to 110 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from drugmaker Moderna. The purchase comes as African countries struggle to obtain vaccine supplies.

White House's deputy coordinator for COVID-19 response, Natalie Quillian, said the US was deferring a delivery of 33 million doses it had bought from Moderna to give the AU its "spot in line" to make a purchase.

The AU's doses will be delivered over the coming months, with 15 million arriving before the end of 2021, 35 million in the first quarter of next year and up to 60 million in the second quarter.

"This is important as it allows us to increase the number of vaccines available immediately," AU coronavirus envoy Strive Masiyiwa told Reuters.

"We urge other vaccine producing countries to follow the lead of the US government and give us similar access to buy this and other vaccines," he added.

The new shipments of vaccine are still well below what the African continent needs to vaccinate 1.3 billion people.

Here are some more coronavirus headlines from around the world:

Europe

Belgium will reinforce COVID-19 measures in an attempt to curb a sharp increase of coronavirus cases. The measures would include increased mandatory use of face masks and virus passports.

Mask requirements and some other measures had been relaxed early this month. Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke did say, however, that drastic restrictions such as closing schools and restaurants were not planned

The Belgian govenrment also said it was exploring vaccine passports, or requiring people to show proof that they are fully vaccinated, had a recent negative virus test or recovered from COVID-19 within the previous six months.

Asia-Pacific

China will begin vaccinating children as young as 3 years old, becoming one of the very few countries in the world to start vaccinating children that young against the virus

Some 76% of the population has been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

Local city and provincial level governments in at least five Chinese provinces issued notices in recent days announcing that children ages 3 to 11 will be required to get their vaccinations.

The announcement comes as parts of China have seen new lockdown measures, imposed to control small outbreaks.

New Zealand said it will expand a vaccine mandate to include thousands of workers who have close contact with customers, which would include employees at restaurants, bars, gyms and hair salons.

This means that 40% of all New Zealand workers will have to get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus or risk losing their jobs, up from about 15% previously.

The announcement comes after the government set a 90% vaccination rate target for people over the age of 12, in order to end the cycle of lockdowns.

South Korea granted emergency use approval for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, to be produced by South Korean drugmaker Samsung BioLogics, the health ministry confirmed.

Moderna agreed to distribute 2.44 million doses of the vaccine produced by Samsung to South Korea, which said the shots would be widely used in the current quarter, including as boosters for high-risk people.

Americas

Mexico began vaccinating adolescents with chronic diseases in its capital city. Authorities said they had begun using the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine for minors with comorbidities aged between 12 and 17 years old.

The move comes after the Mexican government said it would not include minors in its national immunization plan, arguing that exposing them at an early age to the vaccine could affect their immune systems.

The northwestern state of Baja California, which borders the US, also began COVID-19 vaccinations for minors with serious illnesses.

Mexico has the world's fourth-highest COVID-19 death toll. With a population of 126 million people, some 53.5 million adults have been fully vaccinated.

Some 8,000 Nicaraguans were vaccinated for COVID-19 at two customs border crossings with neighboring Honduras in recent days, Honduran health authorities said, as supplies of the inoculations in Nicaragua have run low.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez wrote in a post on Twitter that "the solidarity and brotherhood of Hondurans crosses borders," adding that up to 500 doses were being given to Nicaraguans daily.

Honduran health authorities said the cross-border assistance was a way to help beat back the risk of more infections at home.

Source: DW