American and French companies announced that they had stopped developing two anti-Coronavirus vaccines, while the German Ministry of Health decided to license an experimental treatment for Corona that was received by former US President Donald Trump.

The US pharmaceutical company Merck said that it had "stopped developing two vaccines against the Corona virus, and that it would focus its tests on treatments for HIV infection instead of vaccines."

The company added that its early tests of the vaccines "V590 ″ (in 590) and" V591 "(in 591) showed that they generated lower immunity than that seen in people who had recovered from the Corona virus, as well as those that were generated by other vaccines of the virus.

In turn, the American biotechnology company Moderna announced in a statement today, Monday, that the anti-Corona vaccine it had developed is still effective against the British and South African mutated versions of the virus.

And she confirmed, at the end of the experiments, that the experts expect the vaccine to protect against infection of the "mutated versions discovered to date."

Moderna explained that it worked on developing an additional dose to increase protection since the mutated copies.

France .. Corona vaccine projects falter

And in France, Institut Pasteur announced today that it has stopped developing its main vaccine project against the emerging corona virus, because first tests showed that it was less effective than expected.

Commenting on its decision to put an end to its project, the institute said, "The immune responses were lower than those observed in people who recovered from a natural infection, as well as those observed with the approved vaccines against the Coronavirus."

The institute used the measles vaccine as a base to develop a vaccine against the Corona virus.

And last December, the French laboratory, Sanofi, announced that it would delay the launch of its vaccine, and would not be ready until late 2021, due to worse than expected results.

Germany licenses 'Trump' treatment

In Germany, the Ministry of Health said that it "will start next week using the experimental treatment based on antibodies received by former US President Donald Trump."

German Health Minister Jens Young confirmed in press statements that the government bought 200,000 doses at a price of 400 million euros, that is, at a cost of two thousand euros per dose, making Germany the first country in the European Union to use this type of treatment.

The treatment is based on a mixture of "monoclonal" antibodies that mimic what the immune system does after infection with the Coronavirus, by blocking the virus tip that allows it to adhere to and penetrate human cells.

The poor are the biggest victim of Corona

In a related context, Oxfam warned that failure to fight the Coronavirus will exacerbate inequality in almost all countries unless governments move to radically reorganize their economies.

The charitable organization urged governments to ensure that everyone has access to the Corona virus vaccine and financial support in the event they lose their jobs.

"The richest thousand men in the world compensated for the losses they recorded in the first days of the pandemic, while the poor may take more than 10 years to recoup their losses," she said in a report entitled "The Inequality Virus ... addressed to Davos Conference Leaders."

The organization expected that poverty rates in 2030 will exceed what they were before the start of the pandemic, as 3 billion and 400 million people will live by about $ 5.5 a day.

She pointed out that women and marginalized ethnic and racial groups bear the brunt of the consequences of this pandemic, and this will push them into poverty, hunger and lack of health care.

The Corona virus caused "severe damage" to the jobs sector, with the equivalent of 255 million job losses in 2020, according to the International Labor Organization.

Two million deaths around the world

The new Corona virus has caused the death of 2.12 million people in the world since the end of December 2019, while more than 99.14 million people in the world have been officially infected with the virus since the outbreak of the epidemic, of whom at least 60 million have cured.

And the United States is the country most affected by the epidemic, as it recorded more than 419 thousand deaths, followed by Brazil, where it recorded 217 thousand deaths, India more than 153 thousand deaths, Mexico 149 thousand deaths, while the deaths in the United Kingdom approached 100 thousand deaths.

Since the start of the epidemic, the number of detection tests has increased dramatically and screening and tracking techniques have improved, which has led to an increase in diagnosed infections.

Despite this, the declared number of injuries may not reflect only a small portion of the actual total, with a large proportion of less severe cases or those without symptoms remaining undetected.