Countries in the European Union reopen their borders with Britain on conditions

Companies expect that their vaccines will be effective with the new Corona strain

At least four companies expected that the vaccines they produced to prevent "Covid-19" disease would be effective against a new rapidly spreading virus in Britain, and they were conducting tests that would provide confirmation of their expectations in the next few weeks, while countries in the European Union began to reopen their borders with Britain on conditions While deaths from the new Corona virus rose to 1.7 million, and cases approached 78 million.

In detail, the CEO of the German company Biontec, Ugur Shaheen, which took less than a year, in partnership with the US company Pfizer, to obtain approval for the vaccine, said yesterday that he expects the vaccine to remain effective against a new strain of the virus.

The German companies Moderna, Corvac and British AstraZeneca also believe that the vaccines they have developed will succeed in facing the new strain of the virus that has caused chaos in Britain, which led to a wave of travel bans that disrupts trade with Europe, and threatens to deepen Britain's isolation from the continent.

"It is very likely from a scientific point of view that the immune system response with this vaccine can also deal with this strain of the virus," Shaheen said in a press conference.

He added that getting a final answer will take another two weeks or so for the study and data collection.

He continued: «The vaccine contains more than 1270 amino acids and nine of them, according to changes (in the mutated virus).

This means that 99% of the protein remains unchanged.

The new strain may be up to 70% more contagious, and it may be a greater cause of concern for children.

“In principle, the beauty of the vaccine technology is that we can start directly engineering the vaccine in a way that fully mimics this new mutation,” Shaheen said.

"We will be able to technically provide a new vaccine within six weeks," he added.

Of course, this is not just a technical issue.

We have to deal with how the regulatory bodies will view the matter. ”

The German company, Curvac, began the final phase of clinical trials for its vaccine last week, and is constantly reviewing the strains that the company said is common with the spread of the virus.

Britain's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said on Saturday that vaccines appeared to be sufficient to generate an immune response to the coronavirus strain.

The World Health Organization said yesterday that it will hold a meeting of members to discuss strategies to address the mutation.

France, Belgium and the Czech Republic began reopening their borders with the United Kingdom yesterday to allow their nationals to return, with the resumption of cargo transport operations through the English Channel, with conditions.

And 50 countries have suspended or imposed restrictions on entry for travelers after the discovery of a new strain of the new Corona virus in Britain.

The last of which is Bolivia, which will prevent all travelers from Europe from entering its territory from Friday to the eighth of January.

Yesterday, a vaccination campaign against "Covid-19" was launched in Switzerland, and a woman over 90 years old in Lucerne became the first person to receive the vaccine after only four days of being licensed by the authorities.

Today, Mexico will launch its campaign with the arrival of the first batch of Pfizer-Bionic American-German vaccines, as the government announced.

The first vaccination campaign will start next Sunday in France in "two or three homes" to care for the elderly, and will include "dozens of residents", according to the Ministry of Health.

Yesterday, Sydney slightly eased the Christmas restrictions, after Australia's largest city recorded for the second day in a row less than 10 cases of coronavirus.

The French group, "Eurovan Scientifique", announced that it had launched equipment in Europe that would allow taking samples at home to conduct a "PCR" test to detect "Covid-19".

He marketed this method of testing in the United States on October 19 under the name "Empower DX Kit".

The new Corona virus has killed 1.7 million people in the world since the WHO office in China reported the outbreak of the disease at the end of December 2019, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official sources yesterday, while more than 77.9 million people in the world were infected with the virus. .

The United States is the country most affected by the epidemic, as it recorded 322,849 thousand deaths, followed by Brazil with 188,259 thousand deaths, India with 146,444 thousand deaths, Mexico with 119,495 thousand deaths, and Italy with 69,842 thousand deaths.

• The new strain may be up to 70% more contagious, and may be a greater cause of concern for children.

• 1.7 million deaths in the world from the virus, and infections close to 78 million.

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