French President Macron blames Covid-19 infection on negligence, bad luck

camong1 (17)in #news • 4 years ago

Covid-19 aux États-Unis : un comité consultatif recommande l'autorisation du vaccin de Moderna francies
Un comité consultatif d'experts a estimé jeudi que le vaccin contre le Covid-19 de la société de biotechnologie Moderna pouvait être autorisé aux États-Unis. Le feu vert officiel des autorités sanitaires américaines devrait suivre rapidement, ouvrant la voie à la livraison de doses dès ce week-end.
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Almost a year has passed since the Huanan wholesale market in Wuhan, China – the suspected source of the Covid-19 pandemic – closed down. Anti-coronavirus measures in place here and at other markets have allowed business to continue, but Chinese authorities now say that imported frozen food, rather than trade in live animals, caused the virus outbreak.
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The site of the Huanan market is hidden from view behind walls and watched over by a few policemen. A convenience store owner across the street recalls the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in late 2019.

“There were lots of vendors who came to our store to buy stuff … I knew the virus could be very contagious, and I was scared,” she told FRANCE 24.

Among the stalls were a handful of vendors who traded in wild animals and who are blamed for enabling the animal to human transmission. But Chinese authorities now have a different theory: They say the virus was introduced by imported frozen food.

At another market in the suburbs of Wuhan, strict protocols are in place to contain the virus. Customers must scan a QR code and have their temperatures taken.

In terms of food safety, locals are mostly worried about infected products coming in from abroad.

“We don’t dare buy imported products,” one shopper told FRANCE 24. “But everything we find in the market has already been inspected.”

Click on the video player above to watch the FRANCE 24 report.

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Un pas vers un vaccin de plus aux États-Unis. Un comité consultatif d'experts a voté, jeudi 17 décembre, pour recommander l'autorisation d'urgence du vaccin contre le Covid-19 de Moderna.

Après cet avis non contraignant, ce sera à l'Agence américaine des médicaments (FDA) d'accorder son feu vert, ce qui devrait intervenir très rapidement et ferait de Moderna le deuxième vaccin à être autorisé dans un pays occidental.

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L'avis a été rendu à 20 voix pour, aucune contre, avec une seule abstention. La question posée était : "Sur la base de tous les éléments scientifiques disponibles, est-ce que les bénéfices du vaccin contre le Covid-19 de Moderna l'emportent sur les risques de son utilisation chez les personnes de 18 ans et plus ?"

Empêcher l'infection

Après la recommandation de ce même comité d'autoriser un premier vaccin, celui de Pfizer/BioNTech, la FDA lui avait donné son feu vert le lendemain.

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La décision ne faisait quasiment aucun doute, la FDA ayant déjà jugé le vaccin sûr et efficace dans une synthèse des données publiées plus tôt cette semaine. L'analyse publiée avait confirmé une efficacité moyenne de 94,1 %. Sur 30 400 participants aux essais cliniques, 196 ont contracté le Covid-19. Parmi eux, 185 avaient reçu un placebo, et 11 le vaccin (au 21 novembre). De plus, les 30 cas de Covid-19 graves recensés se trouvaient tous au sein du groupe placebo.

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Jacqueline Miller, de chez Moderna, a ajouté jeudi que de nombreux éléments suggéraient que le vaccin, en plus de protéger contre le développement des symptômes, pouvait également empêcher l'infection elle-même chez beaucoup de personnes, et donc la transmission - une information cruciale d'un point de vue de santé publique.

Les effets secondaires les plus répandus du vaccin, baptisé mRNA-1273, sont des douleurs à l'endroit de l'injection, de la fatigue, des maux de tête, des douleurs musculaires ou articulaires et des frissons.

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200 millions de doses

Mais après deux cas de réactions allergiques en Alaska au vaccin de Pfizer, qui utilise la même technologie de l'ARN messager, Doran Fink, du bureau des vaccins de la FDA, a fait savoir jeudi qu'un avertissement concernant de potentielles réactions allergiques serait émis en cas d'autorisation du remède de Moderna. Les centres médicaux devront être prêts à traiter rapidement ces réactions.

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Moderna, jeune société de biotechnologie basée dans le Massachusetts, a déposé sa demande d'autorisation en urgence il y a seulement deux semaines et demie. Elle a commencé à travailler sur son vaccin dès janvier 2019, en collaboration avec les Instituts nationaux de santé américains (NIH), et a reçu pour ce faire un soutien de 2,5 milliards de dollars d'argent public. Le gouvernement américain a pré-acheté 200 millions de doses du vaccin de Moderna (100 millions à Pfizer). Puisqu'il se prend en deux doses espacées de quatre semaines, cela correspond à 100 millions de personnes vaccinées.

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La logistique pour la distribution a été pensée depuis des mois. Le but est "d'avoir les camions qui attendent littéralement juste à côté de l'usine pour pouvoir les charger et partir dès le OK de la FDA", avait dit à l'AFP Stéphane Bancel, le patron de Moderna.

La formule de la jeune société peut être conservée à -20°C, et non -70°C pour le vaccin de Pfizer, une température bien plus basse que les congélateurs standards, et qui a forcé le groupe à développer des containers spécifiques pour le transport.

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Moderna a promis de distribuer 20 millions de doses d'ici la fin décembre 2020, puis 80 millions supplémentaires au premier trimestre 2021, et les 100 autres millions au deuxième trimestre (soit d'ici fin juin). Les experts estiment que plus de 70 % de la population doit être vaccinée pour mettre fin à l'épidémie, soit environ 230 millions de personnes aux Etats-Unis.

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Après que le président français a été testé positif au Covid-19, plusieurs personnalités européennes de premier plan, cas contacts, ont décidé de se placer en quarantaine. Cinq dirigeants ont notamment pris cette précaution après la tenue d'un sommet de l'Union européenne les 10 et 11 décembre.
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Le Premier ministre luxembourgeois Xavier Bettel a annoncé, jeudi 17 décembre, qu'il se plaçait en quarantaine, devenant le cinquième dirigeant à s'isoler après avoir participé les 10 et 11 décembre à un sommet européen avec Emmanuel Macron, testé depuis positif au Covid-19.

"Suite à notre participation au Conseil européen, j'ai décidé par précaution de me placer en auto-quarantaine jusqu'à la réception de mon résultat de test pour protéger les gens autour de moi. Je n'ai pas de symptômes et continue à exercer pleinement mes tâches et fonctions", a écrit Xavier Bettel sur son compte Twitter.

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Les chefs de gouvernement belge Alexander De Croo, portugais Antonio Costa, espagnol Pedro Sanchez, ainsi que le président du Conseil européen Charles Michel avaient annoncé plus tôt qu'ils se plaçaient eux aussi en quarantaine "par précaution".

"Ayant été en contact ensemble jeudi dernier, je me fais tester aujourd'hui et m'isole jusqu'à réception du résultat", avait indiqué le Premier ministre belge sur Twitter.

Emmanuel Macron était présent à Bruxelles jeudi et vendredi 11 décembre pour un sommet européen présidé par Charles Michel.

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"Le chef de l'État, en l'occurrence, n'a manifestement pas été contaminé au cours d'un déjeuner ou d'un dîner à l'Élysée mais vraisemblablement, d'après ce qu'on entend, en tout cas possiblement" lors du sommet réunissant à Bruxelles les dirigeants des Vingt-Sept, a également dit Olivier Véran, le ministre de la santé sur France 5.

Pas de quarantaine pour Ursula Van Der Leyen

Par ailleurs, Angel Gurria, le secrétaire général de l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE), a également annoncé, jeudi, s'être placé à l'isolement après l'annonce du diagnostic positif du président Emmanuel Macron. Les deux hommes se sont cotoyés lundi lors des cérémonies organisées pour le 60e anniversaire de l'OCDE.

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En revanche, la présidente de la Commission européenne Ursula von der Leyen, qui avait dîné dimanche soir à Paris avec le président français, n'a pas jugé nécessaire de se placer en quarantaine.

"Cher Emmanuel Macron, je vous souhaite un prompt rétablissement. Je suis de tout cœur avec vous", a-t-elle écrit en français sur Twitter. "Cette pandémie, nous allons la vaincre ensemble. Nous continuerons à travailler main dans la main pour vacciner et protéger nos citoyens."

Une source européenne a expliqué que, selon l'Élysée, Emmanuel Macron n'était devenu contagieux que plus tard, lundi soir ou mardi. Ursula von der Leyen a été testée lundi et ce test s'est révélé négatif, a précisé cette source.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday blamed his Covid-19 on a combination of negligence and bad luck, urging his compatriots to stay safe as critics called out slip-ups in his behavior to prevent infection, from a close-quarters handshake to repeated big-group meals over the past week.

In what looked like a self-shot video from the presidential retreat in Versailles where he was isolating with symptoms that included headaches, fatigue and a dry cough, Macron promised to give daily updates and be “totally transparent” about the evolution of his illness.

“I wanted to reassure you – I am doing fine. I have the same symptoms as yesterday, notably fatigue, headaches, a dry cough,” he said, speaking softly and dressed casually in a turtleneck top. The president said he would “be back soon” and added there was “no reason to believe this will develop badly”, while adding he was under medical supervision.

“I am working at a slightly slower pace because of the virus, but I shall continue to focus on high-priority issues, such as our handling of the epidemic, or, for example, the Brexit dossier,” Macron said in a video posted on Twitter and other social media platforms.

The 42-year-old French leader said his infection “shows that the virus really can touch everyone, because I am very protected and am very careful".

“Despite everything I caught this virus – perhaps, doubtless, a moment of negligence, a moment of bad luck, too,” he said.

Other European leaders test positive too

A fellow European leader who spent time with Macron at an EU summit last week, Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic, tested positive for the virus Friday. Some other leaders present at the summit reported testing negative, while some were not getting tested and others haven’t yet announced results from their tests.

In France, Macron faced criticism for actions that were seen as setting a bad example as the country sees a new uptick in confirmed cases and doctors warn families to take precautions this holiday season — especially at the dinner table.

While Macron usually wears a mask and adheres to social distancing rules, and has insisted that his virus strategy is driven by science, the president has been captured on camera in recent days violating France’s virus-control guidelines.

He shook hands and half-embraced the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Angel Gurria, at a meeting Monday. Both were masked, but Macron’s office acknowledged Friday the move was a “mistake".

Last week, Macron spent two days in intense negotiations at the EU summit in Brussels with the leaders of the other 26 member countries. Video excerpts released by the EU showed the leaders spread out in a circle in a huge meeting room – Macron, and most of the other leaders, were not masked.

Macron also hosted or took part in multiple large-group meals in the days before testing positive Thursday, including with members of his centrist party and rival politicians, while French people are currently advised to avoid gatherings larger than six people. His office has been contacting those present for the meals, but told some people sitting far from the president that they were not considered at risk.

Isolating in Versailles

Macron office isn’t providing details of his treatment. He is staying at the presidential residence of La Lanterne in the former royal city of Versailles, tucked in a grove tightly guarded by police. His wife Brigitte, who has tested negative, will remain at the Élysée palace in Paris.

Macron’s positive test comes as French health authorities are again seeing a rise in infections and are warning of more as French families prepare to get together for Christmas and New Year festivities. On Friday France recorded a further 264 deaths from Covid-19, bringing the country's death toll from the virus to more than 60,000. An additional 15,674 cases were reported over the past 24 hours.

Macron took a test “as soon as the first symptoms appeared” on Thursday morning and will self-isolate for seven days, in line with national health authorities’ recommendations, the presidency said. Macron plans to continue working, and went ahead with a planned speech by videoconference Thursday.

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The French health minister suggested that Macron might have been infected at the EU summit in Brussels last week, but Macron had multiple meetings in Paris as well.

France had Europe’s first virus case in January, but Macron’s government came under criticism for not having enough masks or tests and not confining the population quickly enough. A strict two-month lockdown brought infections down, and France sent children back to school and their parents back to work.

But infections surged again this fall so he declared a new, softer lockdown in October aimed at relieving pressure on hospitals. The measures were relaxed slightly this week, though restaurants, tourist sites, gyms and some other facilities remain closed.

The development of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the first approved jab in the West, is the crowning achievement of decades of work for Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko, who fled to the US from communist rule in the 1980s.
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When trials found the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to be safe and 95 percent effective in November, it was the crowning achievement of Katalin Kariko’s 40 years of research on the genetic code RNA (ribonucleic acid). Her first reaction was a sense of “redemption,” Kariko told The Daily Telegraph.

“I was grabbing the air, I got so excited I was afraid that I might die or something,” she said from her home in Philadelphia. “When I am knocked down I know how to pick myself up, but I always enjoyed working… I imagined all of the diseases I could treat.”

Born in January 1955 in a Christian family in the town of Szolnok in central Hungary – a year before the doomed heroism of the uprising against the Soviet-backed communist regime – Kariko grew up in nearby Kisujszellas on the Great Hungarian Plain, where her father was a butcher. Fascinated by science from a young age, Kariko began her career at the age of 23 at the University of Szeged’s Biological Research Centre, where she obtained her PhD.

It was there that she first developed her interest in RNA. But communist Hungary’s laboratories lacked resources, and in 1985 the university sacked her. Consequently, Kariko looked for work abroad, getting a job at Temple University in Philadelphia the same year. Hungarians were forbidden from taking money out of the country, so she sold the family car and hid the proceeds in her 2-year-old daughter’s teddy bear. “It was a one-way ticket,” she told Business Insider. “We didn’t know anybody.”

‘Then, I really will be celebrating’

Not everything went as planned after Kariko’s escape from communism. At the end of the 1980s, the scientific community was focused on DNA, which was seen as the key to understanding how to develop treatments for diseases such as cancer. But Kariko’s main interest was RNA, the genetic code that gives cells instructions on how to make proteins.

At the time, research into RNA attracted criticism because the body’s immune system sees it as an intruder, meaning that it often provokes strong inflammatory reactions. In 1995, Kariko was about to be made a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but instead she was consigned to the rank of researcher.

“Usually, at that point, people just say goodbye and leave because it’s so horrible,” Kariko told medical publication Stat. She went through a cancer scare at the time, while her husband was stuck in Hungary trying to sort out visa issues. “I tried to imagine: Everything is here, and I just have to do better experiments,” she continued. Kariko was also on the receiving end of sexism, with colleagues asking her the name of her supervisor when she was running her own lab.

Kariko persisted in the face of these difficulties. “From outside, it seemed crazy, struggling, but I was happy in the lab,” she told Business Insider. “My husband always, even today, says, ‘This is entertainment for you.’ I don’t say that I go to work. It is like play.”

Thanks to Kariko’s position at the University of Pennsylvania, she was able to send her daughter Susan Francia there for a quarter of the tuition costs. Francia won gold on the US rowing team in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

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It was a serendipitous meeting in front of a photocopier in 1997 that turbocharged Kariko’s career. She met immunologist Drew Weissman, who was working on an HIV vaccine. They decided to collaborate to develop a way of allowing synthetic RNA to go unrecognised by the body’s immune system – an endeavour that succeeded to widespread acclaim in 2005. The duo continued their research and succeeded in placing RNA in lipid nanoparticles, a coating that prevents them from degrading too quickly and facilitates their entry into cells.

The researchers behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna jabs used these techniques to develop their vaccines. Both of them use the same strategy of introducing genetic instructions into the body to trigger the production of a protein identical to that of the coronavirus, thereby eliciting the desired immune response.

Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman are now favourites to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Kariko has a senior post at German research firm BioNTech, after years on the fringes of her profession.

Despite this triumph after decades of struggle, Kariko said it’s not yet time to crack open the champagne bottles. She is waiting for mass vaccinations to eradicate the virus’s threat. “Then, I will really be celebrating,” she told CNN.

This article was translated from the original in French.
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