Paraguayan health authorities have expressed their concern over a slowdown in vaccination against COVID-19, with very few booster doses applied.
Uruguay's Health Ministry (MSP) Friday announced the approval of a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine for all people between 18 and 49 years of age.
Argentine laboratory Richmond Tuesday delivered the first batch of locally-produced Sputnik V vaccines against covid-19 to be sent to Russia's Gamaleya Institute for final validation, it was announced.
Uruguay's President Luis Lacalle Pou successfully carried out a personal negotiation with the Pfizer laboratory in Buenos Aires in December as talks between the Argentine government and the manufacturers of the vaccine began to stall, it was reported.
Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) will be sending a delegation to Russia next week to conduct an onsite review of the facilities where the Sputnik V vaccine is manufactured, it was announced Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) exhorted the world to keep administering AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shots on Friday, adding its endorsement to that of European and British regulators after concerns over blood clotting.
Regular booster vaccines against the coronavirus will be needed because of mutations that make it more transmissible and better able to evade human immunity, the head of Britain's effort to sequence the virus' genomes said.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced a first-of-its kind initiative that would help Latin American and Caribbean countries better compete to obtain lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. The instrument would help both countries and vaccine makers resolve indemnity obligations, thereby removing a key obstacle to vaccine contract negotiations.
Europe approved Johnson & Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday and is expected to be delivered in a month. The COVID-19 shot is the fourth to be endorsed for use in the European Union after vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-Oxford University, and Moderna, and is recommended for those over 18 years of age, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.
The rich members of the World Trade Organization blocked a push by over 80 developing countries on Wednesday to waive patent rights in an effort to boost the production of Covid-19 vaccines for poor nations.