Though COVID-19 cases are still declining globally, they are rising again in Africa and the Americas, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly pandemic report.
Meanwhile, in a closely watched vaccine development in the United States, Moderna today submitted its application for emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 6 months to 6 years old.
BA.4 and BA.5 fuel South Africa's rise
Globally, COVID-19 cases have been declining since the middle of March, and last week, cases fell 21% compared to the week before, while deaths declined 20% during the time period, the WHO said yesterday. It again urged caution in interpreting the trends, due to decreased levels of testing and sequencing.
However, it added that cases are up 32% in Africa and 9% in the Americas. At a WHO African regional office briefing today, officials said a spike in South Africa's activity is driving Africa's rise.
In a new preprint study, South African researchers detailed what they know about the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 lineages that are contributing to the country's rising cases. Commenting on the study on Twitter, Tulio de Oliveira, PhD, one of the authors, said the lineages originated in the middle of December and early January, respectively. And though South African researchers characterized them, it's not clear where they originated. He directs South Africa's Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation.
He said so far, a rapid increase in infections over the last 2 weeks hadn't led to large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, though there is an early signal of rising hospitalizations in some of South Africa's provinces. The viruses have a growth advantage over BA.2 that is similar to what BA.2 had over BA.1, and scientists are currently working to characterize immune escape with the two viruses.
de Oliveira said coming 4 months after the Omicron BA.1 wave, waning immunity might be a contributing factor, but he said BA.4 and BA.5 impacts might play out differently by location, depending on the immunity situation.
In the Americas, cases were up 21% last week in the United States, most sharply in Puerto Rico, but increases were also high in parts of the Caribbean and in Argentina.
Though deaths were lower last week, South East Asia's and Africa's levels were higher, due to delays in reporting.
Of roughly 4.5 million cases reported to the WHO last week, the five countries that reported the most cases were Germany, South Korea, France, Italy, and the United States.
In other global developments:
- Rounds of mass testing continue in China's capital city Beijing, where some schools and public places have been closed, as officials work toward avoiding a massive lockdown, similar to the one affecting Shanghai. Beijing's hot spot is the Chaoyang district, which is home to embassies and night life.
- Taiwan's daily cases have topped 10,000, as health officials predicted. Most are asymptomatic or mild, and two deaths were reported today.
Moderna applies for authorization of vaccine for young children
In a welcome development for many parents of young children, Moderna announced today that it has submitted a request to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization (EUA) of its COVID-19 vaccine for children 6 months to under 6 years of age.
The request is based on a 25-microgram two-dose primary series of mRNA-1273. The application is based on favorable results seen during a phase 2/3 trial. No major safety events were recorded.
"We are proud to share that we have initiated our EUA submission for authorization for our COVID-19 vaccine for young children," said Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna. "We believe mRNA-1273 will be able to safely protect these children against SARS-CoV-2, which is so important in our continued fight against COVID-19 and will be especially welcomed by parents and caregivers."
As reported last month, the efficacy of the vaccine in this age group against Omicron strain COVID-19 infections is not as high compared to previous strains: 51% (95% confidence interval [CI], 21 to 69) for children 6 months to 2 years and 37% (95% CI, 13 to 54) for kids ages 2 to 6 years.
Children 5 and under in the United States are the only remaining age group ineligible for COVID-19 vaccines, but efforts to authorize mRNA vaccines in this group have stalled since the beginning of the year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID Data Tracker shows 66.1% of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, 77.5% have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 45.7% of those eligible have received their first booster dose.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases continue to climb across the country. The United States reported 88,780 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 800 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.
The 7-day average of new daily cases is 53,432, with 355 daily deaths, according to the New York Times tracker.
CIDRAP News reporter Stephanie Soucheray contributed to this story.
