BY ERIN PRATER

First-generation vaccines were not the panacea hoped for in COVID-19’s early days. Nor did herd immunity swoop in and save the day.

Could a so-called “pan-coronavirus” vaccine be the long-awaited silver bullet that ends the COVID pandemic—and the next one, too?

Answer: It’s complicated.

“The term pan-coronavirus vaccine needs an asterisk next to it,” Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, told Fortune.
Such a vaccine could tackle all coronaviruses, named for their crown-like appearance under a microscope. Or it could focus on COVID-19 and its myriad variants. Or it could tackle the four longstanding coronaviruses that circulate as common colds—or any combination thereof.

​Read the full article.

The age of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is finally upon us. Consumer applications of A.I., in particular, have come a long way, leading to more accurate search results for online shoppers, allowing apps and websites to make more personalized recommendations, and enabling voice-activated digital assistants to better understand us.

As impressive as these uses of A.I. are, they only hint at how this game-changing technology will be applied in business. Because the goal of business A.I. is to help the companies that drive our global economy learn from their data to become vastly more resilient, adaptive, and innovative.

We all know there is tremendous potential value in data, which continues to grow exponentially. In fact, the world is creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (that's 2.5 followed by 18 zeros). To harness that potential, companies need A.I. to make sense of the data, and hybrid cloud computing platforms that can distribute it across organizations.

​The economic opportunity behind these technologies is enormous, given that business is only about 10 percent of the way to realizing A.I.'s full potential.

By Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IBM

​Read the full article here.

By Naomi Grimley
Health Correspondent

Gordon Brown has warned that the world risks "sleepwalking" into another Covid variant crisis if it does not increase vaccinations in low-income countries.

Wealthier countries needed to share the cost of global vaccinations, tests and treatments, he told the BBC.

Speaking before an international Covid summit on Thursday, the former UK prime minister said the world had become "complacent" about the virus.

US President Joe Biden is due to host the virtual summit at the White House.

He does so at a time when Congress has failed to approve key funds earmarked for the global pandemic response.

Campaigners fear that could mean other countries will not offer extra money either, leaving the push for better vaccine coverage around the world without momentum.

Mr Brown, who is a World Health Organization (WHO) ambassador on health finance, said the numbers were "shocking".

"Only 11% have been vaccinated in low-income countries and we set a target of 70%," he said.
"Tragically, we are sleepwalking into the next variant, and political leaders are still not listening to the medical advice that is still there - that we've got to increase vaccination, continue to test at a high level, and provide the new treatments available."

​Read the full article here.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is showing promising results in detecting breast cancer which may otherwise have been missed by radiologists, the largest study of its kind has found.

Researchers in Germany discovered that AI can correctly detect interval breast cancers, which develop in between routine screening rounds (usually 24 months in many countries) and can be missed and diagnosed as a false negative result.

In 2020, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 685 000 deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The peer-reviewed study showed approximately 16 per cent of interval cancers are probably visible during a previous screening while one in five may be too subtle to the human eye and can be missed by radiologists, which is known as "minimal signs".

The findings present an opportunity to detect more cancers at a screening with AI, which may help detect breast cancer earlier.

​Read the full article here.

A new study on Chile’s national COVID-19 vaccination program, to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022, Lisbon 23-26), and published in The Lancet Global Health, shows that giving a different type of vaccine (heterologous) for the third or ‘booster’ dose than was received for the first two doses, leads to better vaccine performance than using the same (homologous) inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for all three doses.
The study is by Dr Rafael Araos, Institute of Science and Innovation in Medicine, Clinica Alemana, Universidad del Desarrollo, Dr Alejandro Jara, and Dr Eduardo A Undurraga from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and colleagues including Dr  Johanna Acevedo  from the Chilean Ministry of Health.

The study assesses the effectiveness of CoronaVac (Sinovac Biotech), AZD1222 (Oxford-AstraZeneca), or BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine boosters in individuals who had completed a primary two-dose immunisation schedule with CoronaVac, an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine which accounts for about half the COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered globally, compared with no vaccination. The study assessed the nationwide vaccination program in Chile, where the two-dose Coronavac schedule was by far the most commonly given. 

Individuals administered vaccines from Feb 2, 2021 to the prespecified trial end date of Nov 10, 2021 were evaluated; the team excluded individuals with a probable or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (RT-PCR or antigen test) on or before Feb 2, 2021, and individuals who had received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine before Feb 2, 2021. They estimated the vaccine effectiveness of booster doses against laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 (symptomatic COVID-19) cases and COVID-19 outcomes (hospitalisation, admission to the intensive care unit [ICU], and death).

A total of 11 174 257 individuals were eligible for this study, among whom 4 127 546 completed a primary immunisation schedule (two doses) with CoronaVac and received a booster dose during the study period. 1 921 340 (46·5%) participants received a heterologous AZD1222 booster, 2 019 260 (48·9%) received a heterologous BNT162b2 booster, and 186 946 (4·5%) received a homologous booster with CoronaVac.

The authors calculated an adjusted vaccine effectiveness (using statistical modelling) in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 of 79% for a two-dose schedule plus CoronaVac booster, 97% for a BNT162b2 booster, and 93% for an AZD1222 booster. The adjusted vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19-related hospitalisation, ICU admission, and death was 86%, 92%, and 87% for a CoronaVac booster, 96%, 96%, and 97% for a Pfizer-BioNTech booster, and 98%, 99% and 98% for an Astra Zeneca booster.

​Read the full article here.

Increasingly, researchers are looking for ways to implement artificial intelligence into medical imaging.
There are several different cases for why a patient might need medical imaging. Whether it’s for a cardiac event, fracture, neurological condition, or thoracic complications, AI can quickly diagnose and provide treatment options.

Recently, research organizations and universities have been pursuing the expansion of AI in cancer screenings. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients chose to delay care, such as well-visits and cancer screenings, resulting in more advanced cancers.
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By implementing AI into medical imaging, the technology can enhance medical screenings, improve precision medicine, assess patient risk factors, and lighten the load for physicians.

This article looks at how AI can help in:

• Advancing Medical Screenings - By using AI in medical imaging, physicians can identify conditions much quicker, promoting early intervention.
• Improving Precision Medicine - AI can also be implemented into medical imaging to advance precision medicine. 
• Indicating and Assessing Risk - While AI can be used in medical imaging to identify current conditions impacting a patient, it can also predict the potential risk for future illnesses.

Read the full article here.​

By ETHAN ENNALS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

​Experts told The Mail on Sunday that there is one jab ready to go that might already be highly effective against this version of the virus: the one developed by French firm Valneva and ordered by the UK Government – but then cancelled.
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It could have an advantage over current jabs because the way it’s been made differs.

It contains what is known as a fully inactivated virus – a whole Covid virus that has been neutralised. 
Though it can’t cause illness, the immune system reacts by recognising the threat and creating antibodies and other fighter cells, enabling the body to fight off the real virus if it becomes infected.

​Other shots such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca use genetic fragments from one part of the Covid virus, called the spike protein – the section that allows it to bind with healthy cells.

It is this part that’s prone to mutations: the 32 mutations seen in the Botswana variant are all found on the spike protein, which increases the chances that the antibodies developed in response to the above vaccines may not ‘recognise’ it, allowing the virus to slip past.

Since the Valneva jab has more parts of the virus for the immune system to learn from, experts believe it could be more ‘variant-proof’ than the others.

Professor Adam Finn, paediatrician and member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the Government’s advisory group, says there is a ‘strong theoretical argument’ that the Valneva jab could provide protection against the Botswana variant. 

‘This is potentially a more resilient vaccine,’ he said. 

‘Obviously we’d need to look at how it reacts to this particular variant but I think there’s a strong argument for doing that right now.’
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Trial results published last month found two doses of Valneva were 95 per cent effective at preventing infection. The trial of 4,000 participants also reported no cases of severe illness.
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Read the full article

SINGAPORE: Several private clinics here have been seeing a demand for Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines as booster shots, owing largely to a fear of side effects from the third dose of an mRNA jab.
Vaccines like Sinovac and Sinopharm use inactivated viral particles to teach one's immune system to make antibodies.

So far, it has been recommended that those aged 50 and above take an additional mRNA shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines at least six months after their two-dose vaccine regimen, to ensure a high level of protection from severe disease is maintained across a longer period.
The Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination is still studying the possibility of mixing vaccines for the booster dose.

Dr Chua Guan Kiat, a general practitioner at Chua Medical Clinic and Surgery in Bukit Batok, told The Straits Times that there has so far been a "sizeable demand" for Sinovac and Sinopharm as vaccine boosters, the bulk of which comes from the elderly who had been fully vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine.

Since his clinic started offering Sinovac jabs on Sept 23, Dr Chua said that 20 to 30 doses of booster vaccine are being administered each day, with demand likely to rise steadily now that those over 50 have also been invited to take their booster doses.
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He added that the fear of potential side effects from a third dose of the mRNA vaccine has been a major driving force to opt for an inactivated vaccine like Sinovac as a booster.

"Anecdotally, many who had one dose of the inactivated vaccine after receiving two doses of the mRNA had very good antibody results. No doubt, the best antibody results were still obtained with a third mRNA dose, but many didn't want to go through the same side effects again," he said.
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One of his customers, Mr Ho, who is in his 60s, recently received his Sinopharm booster jab after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Asked why he had opted for Sinopharm instead of an mRNA vaccine, Mr Ho said he felt the Sinopharm vaccine uses a tried-and-tested inactivated virus technology, whereas the mRNA technique was previously used to help stimulate antibody response in patients with late-stage cancers.

Mr Ho, who declined to give his full name and his occupation, said the long-term effects of mRNA still remain unknown.

He told ST that he experienced severe pain at his injection site after his second Pfizer dose but not after his Sinopharm booster.

​Read the full article here.