The US' top COVID-19 doctor revealed on Sunday that booster shots of Moderna's novel coronavirus vaccine may not be publicly available until after the week of September 20.
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden administration officials had been hoping to release both booster doses of Moderna and Pfizer at the same time. However, with the delay in mind, Fauci speculated that Moderna would be able to get out its booster supplies a week or two afterwards.
"No decision will be made until we hear back from the chief medical officers," British vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said.
Russia recorded 18,645 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, down from 18,780 cases the day before, bringing cumulative total to 7,012,599, the federal response centre said Sunday.
"Over the past day, 18,645 COVID-19 cases were confirmed across 85 Russian regions, including 1,397 cases (7.5%) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the rate of increase stands at 0.27%.
Moscow has the highest number of new cases with 1,542 daily infections, down from 1,549 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 1,357 new cases, down from 1,494, and the Moscow region with 826 new cases, up from 756.
The response centre reported 793 new deaths linked to the coronavirus, down from 796 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 187,200.
In the same 24 hours, 15,256 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals across the country, down from 18,737 the day before, bringing the total to 6,270,731.
A plane carrying 1.5 million doses of China's Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine has arrived in Minsk, the Belarusian Ministry of Health said on Sunday.
"A plane with 1.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine has arrived from Beijing to Belarus. The cargo included 500,000 doses that the Chinese side provided Belarus in friendly humanitarian aid, as well as 1 million doses as part of the purchase," the ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
Apart from the Sinopharm vaccine, Belarus is currently immunizing its citizens with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. Earlier this week, Minsk received a batch of the Sputnik Light vaccine.
The Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, Anvisa, has prohibited the distribution of millions of Chinese Sinovac vaccines against COVID-19, delivered from a facility not approved by the regulator.
"Anvisa prohibited as of this Saturday the distribution of the CoronaVac vaccine batches packaged in a plant [in China] that did not receive the Emergency Use Authorization (AUE)," Anvisa said in a Saturday statement.
The ban came after 12.13 million CoronaVac doses already entered the country in 25 batches. Another 17 batches containing a total of 9 million doses of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine are being prepared for shipment.
At the end of August, Anvisa prohibited the use of the CoronaVac shots in children aged 3-17, for lack of sufficient efficacy and safety data for this age group.
