Although the severity of the new Corona virus epidemic has subsided; Especially after the end of the exacerbation of the health crisis in China; The drug market is still full of various types of new drugs, whose makers hope to find solutions to a number of incurable diseases, while research and studies continue to solve the Covid-19 dilemma. Okaz monitored pharmaceutical developments in the following cases:
• The British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline announced, in a statement from its headquarters in the suburb of Brentford (west London), that the US Food and Drug Administration approved a drug developed by its scientists, to be the first oral drug, to treat anemia that results from chronic kidney failure in adults who undergo dialysis. Kidney for at least four months. The medicine contains in its package a warning that it may lead to clots in the blood capillaries, which may in turn lead to death, heart attacks, stroke, and the occurrence of clots in the lungs, legs, or in the area where the tubes for introducing blood dialysis materials for the kidneys are placed. Risks also include possible admission to heart failure, severely elevated blood pressure, abdominal distress, and intestinal bleeding. The Food and Drug Authority said that it had refrained from licensing the drug for people who are not undergoing dialysis, because its safety in this group was not clear. The new drug is called Jesdofroc. The new English drug enhances the body's ability to produce red blood cells, in a way that simulates what happens to the body at high altitudes, where lack of oxygen leads to an increase in the number of red blood cells and an increase in hemoglobin concentration.
• The American pharmaceutical company Gilead said that the Food and Drug Authority informed it of its approval of a drug developed by its scientists to treat breast cancer. The FDA had previously approved Trudelphi for the treatment of advanced-stage breast cancer, in which patients stopped responding to hormonal drugs. Gilead will face fierce competition from Enherto, which was pioneered by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and Japanese Daiichi Sankyo. Experts said they expect modest sales of Gilead, because its life-extending results are lower than Enherto. Gilead expected that the number of users of its aforementioned drug would reach between 6,000 and 8,000 patients annually. Experts in health marketing believed that Gilead might reap profits from its aforementioned drug in the range of $600 million per year. It is reported that Trudelphi was previously approved for use in patients with breast and bladder cancer. It basically kills cancerous tumor cells. It was finally approved in the light of an advanced clinical trial whose data demonstrated its ability to reduce the risk of cancer progression and death by up to 34%. The experiment also proved that it reduces the risk of death by 21% compared to chemotherapy.
• The US Food and Drug Administration said that it is coordinating with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the outbreak of a rare type of bacteria that is resistant to drugs in a number of US states. She added that the bad results of infection with this germ include hypnosis, death as a result of inflammation in the bloodstream, and complete regression of vision as a result of inflammation in the eye. The Food and Drug Authority warned against using eye drops manufactured in India, which are believed to be behind the outbreak of the aforementioned germ, after reports from 55 people, one of whom died, and others became completely blind after consuming this Indian eye drop. The authority explained that the drop of artificial tears, which is manufactured by the Indian company Global Pharma for healthcare, is likely to be contaminated. The manufacturer was accused of violating good manufacturing rules. And the Indian company, which is based in Chennai (southern India), announced that it had asked its distributors to withdraw the drop packages in the American markets, and the Indian company's agent, Isrecare, said that it had stopped distributing the aforementioned artificial tears.
• The Chinese pharmaceutical company, CanSino Biologix, stated that it is confident that a vaccine it has manufactured to prevent the Covid-19 virus, using mRNA technology, is of the same quality as the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. China, even after the outbreak of a wave of Covid-19 infections, following the government's decision to cancel the "zero Covid" strategy, refused to use the two foreign vaccines based on mRNA technology. Although China produced a number of local vaccines; Most countries in the world consider them to be inferior in quality and effectiveness to the two mRNA vaccines. And CanSino announced last January that interim results from an expanded clinical trial on its advanced vaccine were positive.
Covid is slowing down.. the end is drawing near?
The outbreak of the new Corona virus continues to decline around the world. The daily average of its new cases fell to 203,230 new infections on Saturday, a decrease of 43% from what it was 14 days ago. This was accompanied by a similar decrease in the number of daily deaths from Covid-19; On Saturday, the countries of the world recorded 1,715 additional deaths from the virus, a decrease from the number 14 days ago, by 58%. And the number of new cases in the United States decreased, on Saturday, to 40,685, which is less than the situation 14 days ago, by about 14%. This was accompanied by a drop in the number of new deaths, which reached 459 on Saturday, about 8% lower than it was 14 days ago. This does not mean that the global pandemic has vanished, after three years of terror, death, and disruption. The cumulative number of injuries in the world, and injuries in each country, continued to rise. America maintained the top of the list of countries most affected by the virus. As the cumulative number of her injuries rose on Saturday to 104.45 million. While China maintained the second rank, with more than 44 million injuries; France jumped to rank third, with 39.53 million injuries. It is followed by its neighbor, Germany, in fourth place, with 37.82 million cases. And the World Health Organization had recently extended the state of health emergency declared since 2020, stressing the continued risks of the new Corona virus, and its consequences for health services facilities in all countries of the world. However, several countries have begun to breathe the air of freedom from the threat of Covid-19, especially China, which observers and health experts speculated may be recording one million deaths a year. And the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday that the number of Covid-19 deaths decreased by half during the week following the start of the Chinese New Year holidays. The center considered this as evidence of the decline in the wave of infections that have swept China since the end of last year. And the center announced (Saturday) that 3,278 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded in the country's hospitals during the period from January 27 to February 2, compared to 6,300 deaths during the previous week. The center said that 131 people died from respiratory failure, while 3,147 people died from chronic diseases that were exacerbated by them as a result of their infection with Covid-19. Observers say that the real number of deaths in China may be much higher than that. As the Chinese authorities only rely on deaths that occur in hospitals. It does not take into account COVID-19 deaths that occur in homes and in nursing homes. It is noteworthy that a prominent official in the fight against infectious diseases stated earlier this month that more than 1.1 billion people have been infected with the virus in China since the abolition of strict preventive measures on December 7, 2022.
Okaz Health Observatory (numbers in millions)
• World injuries: 676.14
• World mortality: 6.77
• America: 104.45
• France: 39.53
• Germany: 37.82
• Brazil: 36.87
• Japan: 32.71
• Russia: 21.99
• Poland: 6.38
(“Okaz” / World Ometer / Johns Hopkins / The New York Times – 5/2/2023)
Yassin Ahmed (London) @OKAZ_online