The UK’s independent vaccines committee has finalized its recommendations for the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination program, and safety issues with several vaccines are still hitting the headlines.

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine gets the all-clear in India as the COVAX initiative hits the shortages speed bump. Also, two more antibody treatments are OKd for use in COVID-19 in the UK.

The French authorities believe that the “heterologous prime-boost” approach is justified in the case of people aged under 55 years who are due to receive their second dose of the AZ COVID-19 vaccine.

The AZ vaccine is now under EU scrutiny over capillary leak syndrome, while Valneva has reported positive results with its product. The global COVAX initiative has delivered more than 38 million doses of vaccines to over a hundred countries. 

The team behind Sputnik V has attacked what it calls “fake news and provocations” in the EU as political arguments over the vaccine claim another ministerial scalp.

Once a major source of parallel exports because of its low drug prices, Italy is now taking steps to reduce medicine spending by targeting the burgeoning parallel import market.