Myanmar Starts India Made Covid-19 Vaccination For Healthcare Staff

State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi is on hand as medical workers receive shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Naypyitaw.

YANGON -- Myanmar began COVID-19 vaccinations on Wednesday, five days after receiving 1.5 million doses from India, whose commitment to the Southeast Asian nation overwhelms China's in terms of volume and timeliness.

Health staffers across Myanmar have started receiving Covid-19 vaccinations at hospitals and treatment centers under the ministry of health and sports

The 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses that arrived at Yangon International Airport on Friday were made by the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine producer. The Indian government also helped Myanmar to sign an agreement with the Serum Institute to buy an additional 30 million doses.

Myanmar has a population of about 54 million.  

The Maldives, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal all received vaccines from India a few days earlier than Myanmar. The Indian Ocean island nations of Seychelles and Mauritius received supplies the same day as Myanmar. 

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 11 promised to provide 300,000 doses to Myanmar -- a commitment that lacks a concrete time frame. Wang was visiting Naypyidaw when he made the pledge . 

Argentine Soccer Legend Diego Maradona dies at 60 .

 Diego Armando Maradona, the mop-haired boy from a Buenos Aires slum who dribbled and dazzled his way to world fame, becoming one of the greatest soccer players of all time but also one of the most self-destructive, has died. 

Maradona died on Wednesday from a heart attack, the Associated Press has confirmed. Maradona had been plagued by health issues in recent years . He was 60 years of age .

As the news of Maradona’s death circulated around the world Wednesday, Argentine President Fernandez called for three days of national mourning while UEFA, soccer’s governing body in Europe, announced there would be a minute of silence before its Champions League and Europa League games this week.  

Pele, the Brazilian legend and perhaps the greatest player of all time, wrote on Twitter that he “lost a great friend and the world lost a legend. … One day, I hope we can play ball together in the sky.”

Such was the complexity of Maradona’s personal life, according to news accounts, that he was the father of eight children, including two daughters with his wife at the time, Claudia Villafañe — they later divorced — and three children fathered while he was in Cuba undergoing treatment for his cocaine addiction. His survivors include those daughters, Dalma and Gianinna, as well as three children from other relationships: Diego Armando Maradona Sinagra, an Italian soccer player; Jana Maradona; and Dieguito Fernando Maradona.

Diego Armando Maradona was born Oct. 30, 1960, in Lanus, Argentina, and raised in the Buenos Aires shantytown Villa Fiorito, where he took up soccer on dusty streets with an urchin’s resourcefulness. By age 15, he had turned professional. He later starred with the European club powers Napoli and Barcelona. In 1986 he won the Fifa World Cup held in Mexico . And, in 2010, coached Argentina in the 2010 World Cup, held in South Africa.

Pakistan Approves Castration Law For Rapists .

 Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has approved a law on chemical castration of rapists .

He approved, in principal, the law during a federal cabinet meeting where the country’s law ministry presented a draft of the anti-rapist ordinance .

Prime Minister  stressed that it’s a serious matter, hence, there should not be any delay in implementing the law to provide a safe environment for citizens.

Rape survivors will be able to register their complaint without fear - with the government protecting their identity.  He said the legislation will be clear and transparent with strict enforcement.

The rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Lahore in January 2018 and more recently the motorway gang-rape in Lahore sparked a debate on the severity of punishment to prevent sexual assaults. Notably, a Pakistani woman was allegedly gang-raped in front of her children by robbers on a motorway in Punjab province on September 9 this year, triggering a public outcry and sending shockwaves across the nation .

Pfizer and BioNTech submit their Covid vaccine for US approval

 Pfizer and BioNTech submitted their Covid-19 shot for emergency authorisation in the US  becoming the first pharmaceutical companies to apply for regulatory approval of a coronavirus vaccine .

If Pfizer’s application is approved, the vaccine will likely be limited and rolled out in phases, with health-care workers, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions getting the first inoculations. Essential workers, teachers and people in homeless shelters and prisons would likely be next, followed by children and young adults.

The FDA process is expected to take a few weeks, and an advisory committee meeting to review the vaccine has been tentatively scheduled  for early December. Some Americans could get their first dose of the vaccine in about a month.

The final analysis evaluated 170 confirmed Covid infections among the late-stage trial’s more than 43,000 participants. The companies said 162 cases of Covid were observed in the placebo group versus eight cases observed in the group that received its two-dose vaccine. That resulted in an estimated vaccine efficacy of 95%, they said.

 

Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine Is Safe and 95% Effective

 The drug maker Pfizer said that its coronavirus vaccine was 95 percent effective and had no serious side effects — the first set of complete results from a late-stage vaccine trial as Covid-19 cases.

The data showed that the vaccine prevented mild and severe forms of Covid-19, the company said. And it was 94 percent effective in older adults, who are more vulnerable to developing severe Covid-19 and who do not respond strongly to some types of vaccines.

There have been no serious side effects among the 41,135 adults who received two doses, the companies said in a joint statement. The most common reactions were that 3.7 percent of participants experienced fatigue and 2 percent had a headache, it said.

Pfizer and BioNTech said they will now submit a request "within days" for emergency use authorization with the Food and Drug Administration, while sharing their data with regulators in Europe and elsewhere.

The figure of 95 percent comes from Pfizer and BioNTech analyzing 170 confirmed cases among the 40,000-plus people involved in the trial. Just eight people who were given the vaccine got sick, compared with 162 who were given a placebo.

Moderna’s Covid-19 Vaccine Is 94.5% Effective in Early Results

 

 

Moderna  said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective at protecting people from Covid-19 in an early look at pivotal study results, the second vaccine to hit a key milestone in U.S. testing. 

Ninety-five people in the study developed Covid-19 with symptoms; of those, 90 had received a placebo and only five Moderna’s vaccine. 

Moderna had the first vaccine  to enter clinical trials in March 2020 ,Only 63 days after the genetic sequence of the virus was posted online, the company injected the first volunteer with its vaccine candidate. It was able to move so quickly because it used a gene-based technology to create its vaccine. Those types of vaccines are relatively simple to create once researchers know the viral gene they’re trying to target. 

 Moderna said it would have 20 million doses of its two-shot vaccine available by the end of 2020 and 500 million to 1 billion doses in 2021.

Meanwhile, the US is seeing record numbers of COVID-19 cases each day, with no end in sight. Even with this promising data, a vaccine won’t be available to most people for a few months at the very least.

France Imposes Curfew To Battle Against Covid -19

 French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that people must stay at home from 21:00 to 06:00  hours  in Paris and eight other cities to control the rapid spread of covid-19 in the country.

The curfew will come into effect from Saturday and last for at least four weeks, Mr Macron said in a televised interview.

A state of emergency has also been declared.

A further 22,951 infections were confirmed on Wednesday on 7th October 2020

Across Europe, governments are introducing new restrictions to battle a second wave of infections.

A partial lockdown comes into force in the Netherlands at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) and cafes and restaurants are closing.

Earlier on Wednesday, Spain's north-eastern region of Catalonia said that bars and restaurants would close for 15 days from Thursday.

The Czech Republic has shut schools and bars.It has the highest rate in Europe over the past two weeks, at 581.3 cases per 100,000 people

Across Europe, infection rates are rising, with Russia reporting a record 14,321 daily cases on Wednesday and a further 239 deaths. Source : BBC

 

 

 

US President Donald Trump blood oxygen level dipped .

 Covid affected US President Donald Trump has been given steroid dexamethasone as his blood oxygen level dipped twice since Friday .

 
Although Dr Eric Feigl Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, told Al Jazeera that Trump being given dexamethasone is “a extremely worrying sign”.

World Health Organization says it is only used for critical and severe patients. It actually recommends against  people who are not serious,” he said. “NIH [National Institutes of Health] also says it only for serious patients who are either on ventilators or supplemental oxygen, which Trump barely qualifies for.”

Trump posted a video Saturday in which he said he was feeling better, but he also acknowledged that the next few days will be the “real test” as he undergoes treatment. White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said he is “cautiously optimistic” about Trump’s condition but the president is “not yet out of the woods.“

Husband hacked to death in broad day light, Wife and 5 others sentenced to death .

                                         CCTV footage of Rifat Murder
 

Sensational Rifat Sharif murder case in Barguna district in Bangladesh victim's wife and five others sentenced to death .

Last year 26th june of 2019 Rifat Sharif was hacked to death in broad day light in front of thousand people . His wife Ayesha Siddika Minni was mastermind behind that murder ,

He was attacked near the main gate of Barguna Government College. Surveillance camera footage showed his wife Minni apparently trying to save him.

Twenty-four people were accused in the murder case filed by Rifat’s father. Minni, initially named as a witness, was later arrested on July 16 last year and made an accused.

Sabbir Ahmed alias Nayon Bond, the main accused, was killed in an alleged gunfight with police on July 2. 2019

The other convicts are — Rakibul Hasan Rifat Farazi, Al Kaiyum alias Akon, Hasan, Mohaiminul Islam Sifat and Hridoy.

Meanwhile, 14 other underage accused are being tried separately at a juvenile court over Rifat’s murder.

Rifat’s father Dulal Sharif said he was satisfied with the “exemplary sentence”.

156 countries agree to Covid vaccine allocation deal .

 A coalition of 156 countries has agreed a “landmark” deal to enable the rapid and equitable global distribution of any new coronavirus vaccines to 3% of participating countries’ populations, to protect vulnerable healthcare systems, frontline health workers and those in social care settings . 

The Covid-19 vaccine allocation plan – co-led by the World Health Organisation   and known as Covax – has been set up to ensure that the research, purchase and distribution of any new vaccine is shared equally between the world’s richest countries and those in the developing world.

Sixty-four higher income economies have already joined Covax, which includes commitments from 35 economies as well as the European commission, which will procure doses   on behalf of the 27 European Union  member states plus Norway and Iceland   with 38 more expected to join in the coming days.

 Ultimately the scheme aims to deliver 2 bllion doses of safe, effective vaccines around the world by the end of 2021.

Recognising that the first useful vaccines to emerge may be in short supply, approved vaccines will initially be made available to a tightly targeted 3% of the population of participating countries, building over time to 20% of each country’s most vulnerable population .