Vaccine rollout delayed in Europe as global Covid deaths near 2m

• ‘Miracle’ drug ivermectin unproven against Covid, scientists warn

PARIS: Pfizer-BioNTech said on Friday deliveries of its leading coronavirus vaccine to Europe will be delayed in the weeks ahead, hampering the rollout as global deaths from the pandemic close in on two million.

News of the vaccine setback came as World Health Organization experts were working on advice to fight new strains of the disease feared to be more contagious.

The soaring number of fatalities — 1,994,833 — is matched by the spread of infections, with Europe recording 30,003,905 cases, nearly a third of the worldwide total, according to an AFP tally based on official statistics.

The announcement that Pfizer-BioNTech shots would be delayed for up to a month during work to boost capacity at the US company’s plant in Puurs, Belgium was met with dismay by many EU members.

Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states called the vaccine holdup “unacceptable” — although Berlin and Brussels said Pfizer had vowed to deliver the full quantities of doses promised for the first quarter before the end of March.

France had said earlier Friday that its pharma giant Sanofi could manufacture vaccines on behalf of other developers, including Pfizer-BioNTech, while awaiting approval of its own shot — not expected before the end of the year.

With cases still mounting and vaccination drives still in their infancy, many countries are doubling down on virus restrictions.

Portugal entered a fresh lockdown Friday while Britain began requiring negative tests for entry, and new curbs on populations were announced from Italy to Brazil and Lebanon.

Looking to bring forward crisis talks with regional leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing for a “significant” tightening of curbs to slow the country’s infection rate after cases hit two million, participants at a meeting of her centre-right CDU party told AFP.

At the Meissen crematorium in Germany’s Saxony state, coffins were stacked up to three high, or even stored in hallways, awaiting cremation.

Britain on Thursday said it would ban all arrivals from South American countries from Friday, over fears of importing a new coronavirus strain.

The new strain, known as E484K, has raised alarm among researchers over its possible impact on immunity. Brazil’s northern Amazonas state announced a curfew from seven pm to six am as the health system is pushed to breaking point in the state capital Manaus.

Global health experts were expected on Friday to issue recommendations to stem the spread of this variant and other new strains, which the WHO called “worrying”.

Elsewhere scientists have warned that anti-parasite drug ivermectin, promoted in Facebook posts and by some Latin American leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, should not be taken to treat coronavirus before more research is completed.

The European Medicines Agency also said hackers had leaked online documents stolen from the watchdog, some of them altered to sow doubt about vaccines among the public.

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European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen backed a Greek call for an EU-wide digital vaccination certificate, which Athens hopes could relieve the bloc’s battered travel and tourism industry.

There were signs of the strain from cross-Channel train operator Eurostar, said to be in “a very critical” state by an executive at top shareholder SNCF as it runs just one London-Paris connection per day.

Around the world, scientists see large-scale vaccination as the way out of the crisis — but 95 percent of doses so far administered have been limited to just 10 countries, according to the WHO.

Progress on administering vaccines has often been slow.

India’s mammoth immunisation programme will begin on Saturday. In the United States around 10 million people have received a first shot.

In Africa, Senegal said it would launch vaccinations by the end of March and Nigeria announced it would have 10 million vaccine doses by the end of the same month.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with 200 million people, has officially reported 104,000 Covid-19 cases, of which 1,382 have been fatal. But the figures are believed to fall short of the real toll.