Category: Covid-19

WHO Likely to Reject Medicago Covid Vaccine
The World Health Organization is unlikely to grant emergency approval Medicago’s tobacco plant-based Covid-19 vaccine due to the company’s ties to the tobacco industry, the CBC reported on March 17.
The global health body has reportedly paused the process for pre-qualification of Medicago’s new Covifenz shot due to its link to Philip Morris International, which owns about one-third of the Canadian biopharmaceutical company.
“Due to its connections [to PMI], the process is put on hold,” said Mariangela Simao, the WHO’s assistant director-general for drug access, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, at a March 16 media briefing.
“The WHO and the U.N. have a very strict policy regarding engagement with the tobacco and arms [industries], so it’s very likely it won’t be accepted for emergency use listing,” she said.
In February, Health Canada approved Covifenz for adults 18 to 64 years of age, making it the world’s first vaccine approved for human use that utilizes a plant-based protein technology. The Canadian government floated CAD173 million ($136.74 million) to help the company develop the jab and is so far the only country to approve it.
In October 2020, Canada signed a deal to buy 76 million doses of Medicago’s vaccine, and the shot is expected to be made available to the public in May.
In a statement published by the CBC, Medicago said it believes authorization decisions should be based on the quality, efficiency and safety of the vaccine, not who owns shares in the manufacturer.
“It is our understanding that the WHO has made a decision to pause the approval of the vaccine and that this decision is related to Medicago’s minority shareholder and not to the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, which was demonstrated with the approval by Health Canada,” the statement reads.
Derek Yach, a global health consultant, was aghast by the WHO’s suggestion that it would reject Medicago’s vaccine based on the company’s relationship with PMI.
“‘Pikuach nefesh’ is the ethical principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule,” he said. “Most other religions support a variant of this. WHO violates this ethical principle when it denies people access to a lifesaving vaccine.”
If the WHO follows through, the vaccine would be the first Western-manufactured Covid-19 shot to be rejected by the global health body, according to Bloomberg.
March 17, 2022
Shenzhen Locks Down Due to HK Covid Surge

Photo: niromaks
China’s health authorities have locked down Shenzhen to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from Hong Kong, which is experiencing a surge of the virus.
Shenzhen is a significant manufacturer of consumer electronics, including vapor hardware, for the global market. The city houses tech powerhouses, such as iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, and more than 170,000 vaping-related businesses. The local vapor industry employs more than 3 million people and supplies more than 90 percent of the vapor hardware used around the world, according to some estimates.
The Shenzhen lockdown will last for at least seven days. All nonessential workers must stay home, adults must take PCR tests and public transportation is being halted.
A lockdown in Shenzhen might further disrupt global supply chains because Shenzhen has one of the world’s largest ports. An outbreak in Shenzhen in late spring of last year held up port operations and caused a steep spike in global shipping rates that helped drive up prices for imported goods in the United States and elsewhere.
According to The New York Times, Hong Kong has reported nearly 3,780 Covid-19 deaths and nearly 700,000 new cases since late January. Shenzhen reported 66 new cases in a population of 17 million on Sunday.
March 14, 2022
Canada Approves Medicago’s Vaccine

Photo: M.Rode-Foto
Health Canada has approved Covifenz, a tobacco plant-based coronavirus vaccination developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company backed by Philip Morris International.
“The approval of our Covid-19 vaccine is a significant milestone for Canada in the fight against the pandemic. We appreciate Health Canada’s timely review,” said Takashi Nagao, president and CEO of Medicago, in a statement. “We’re also grateful for the government of Canada’s support in the development of this new vaccine, and we are manufacturing doses to start fulfilling its order.”
“This first approval is an important milestone in our approach of pairing GSK’s well-established pandemic adjuvant with promising antigens to develop protein-based, refrigerator-stable Covid-19 vaccines to help protect people against Covid-19 disease,” said Roger Connor, president of GSK Vaccines. “We look forward to working with Medicago to make the vaccine available in Canada and to progress further regulatory submissions.”
The government of Canada has a contract with Medicago to supply the Covid-19 vaccine.
“As one of our government’s top priorities has been to reverse the 40-year decline faced by Canada’s biomanufacturing sector, we are pleased to see Medicago’s vaccine approval. It is a great milestone for Canada’s biotechnology sector and for homegrown innovation. We will continue to support companies that want to produce vaccines in Canada and join the growing national biomanufacturing sector,” said François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry.
Health Canada based its decision on scientific data shared by Medicago as part of its rolling submission that began in April 2021 under an Interim Order and concluded with the filing of a New Drug Submission-CV.
“Today is a great day for Medicago as Covifenz becomes its first approved vaccine,” said Yosuke Kimura, chief scientific officer at Medicago. “I’d like to thank the clinical investigators involved in our trials as well as Medicago’s passionate and curious team of over 500 scientific experts and employees. Today only reinforces our commitment to using our technology to provide rapid responses to emerging global health challenges and to advancing therapeutics against life-threatening diseases worldwide.”
Covifenz uses coronavirus-like particle technology with the vaccine composed of recombinant spike (S) glycoprotein expressed as virus-like particles co-administered with GSK’s pandemic adjuvant. The vaccination regimen calls for two doses given intramuscularly 21 days apart (3.75 micrograms of coronavirus-like particle antigen in combination with GSK pandemic adjuvant in the same injection). The vaccine is stored at 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius. The Covifenz antigen will be manufactured in Canada and in North Carolina, USA.
February 25, 2022
Scientists Developing Tobacco-Based Vaccine

Photo: Baiya Phytopharm
Scientists in Thailand are using tobacco to develop a vaccine against the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus.
Testing of the Covid-19 vaccine began in 2020, with the next round of human trials due in the spring.
The benefit of tobacco is that it can be grown almost anywhere in the world at low cost, according to the researchers, who are using a low-nicotine variety from Australia. What’s more, because tobacco grows rapidly, it can be turned from a seed into a vaccine within a month.
“It takes only 10 days for us to produce a prototype and… no more than three weeks to test whether that prototype works or not,” Suthira Taychakhoonavudh, chief executive of Baiya Phytopharm, told Sky News.
Baiya Phytopharm uses the harvested leaves as a host to produce proteins that mimic the Covid-19 virus. The leaves are blended and the protein is extracted. When the resulting vaccine is injected into humans it stimulates antibodies to help fight the real virus in the future.
The company must still complete two more sets of trials and needs regulatory approval before its vaccine can be used by the public.
The earliest the vaccine would be cleared for use is late 2022.
Even though other Covid-19 vaccinations are already available, developers say it’s important to continue the project for future health security. “Covid-19 is not going to be the last one, right?” said Baiya Phytopharm’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Waranyoo Phoolcharoen. “You’re going to have so many emerging diseases and if we can develop the vaccine ourselves, then we don’t have to rely on vaccines from other countries.”
Baiya Phytopharm is not the only company using tobacco to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. British American Tobacco and Medicago—a firm back by Philip Morris International—are also working on plant-based serums.
In early December, Medicago said its vaccine candidate, enhanced by GlaxoSmithKline’s booster, was 75.3 percent effective against the Delta variant of the virus in a late-stage study.
Not everybody is excited about the tobacco industry’s involvement in vaccine development. In 2020, the World Health Organization warned governments about engaging with the tobacco industry over the development of coronavirus vaccines.
Tobacco Reporter profiled Baiya Phytopharm in its November 2020 issue.
December 28, 2021
Report: Tobacco Took Advantage of Pandemic

Photo: Olivier Le Moal
A new report from tobacco industry watchdog STOP suggests that the tobacco industry embraced the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to gain influence, sway health policies and secure preferential treatment. Reports from civil society organizations in 80 countries, analyzed in the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2021, show that no country was immune to the industry’s efforts to use lobbying and donations, often connected to the pandemic response, to its advantage.
“The tobacco industry’s behavior during Covid-19 wasn’t just business as usual—this research suggests it’s been far worse in terms of scale and impact,” said Mary Assunta, head of global research and advocacy for the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control, a partner in STOP and lead author of the index, in a statement. “In the middle of a pandemic, health should be the primary consideration in all policy decisions, but it was often sidelined in favor of the industry’s commercial interests. Where policy isn’t well protected, more lives will be lost to tobacco, and post-Covid economic recovery may be impacted, with higher health costs and potentially less tax revenue to fund recovery.”
During the pandemic, many governments were short of public health resources. Some, like Botswana, Spain, Chile and India stepped up efforts to protect health policy, but others accepted the tobacco industry’s donations or lobbying, according to the report. Increases in tobacco taxes, for example, were delayed and the industry was able to open up new markets for electronic products. Among countries in the 2021 index report, 18 governments improved how they shield themselves from industry influence while 31 governments deteriorated in their efforts.
The tobacco industry’s use of CSR donations that target the pandemic response stands in direct contrast to the importance of stopping tobacco use, according to STOP. Since the start of the pandemic, independent studies have found that smokers are more likely to develop severe Covid-19 as compared to nonsmokers. Tobacco use is a known risk factor for a range of chronic conditions that also place people at greater risk from Covid-19.
“While the pandemic wreaked havoc around the world and the global economy suffered, two of the world’s biggest tobacco companies reported earnings before tax of more than $10 billion each,” said Assunta. “Governments must hold this industry accountable, and it must not be permitted to meddle in policy. It is time for all countries to ban tobacco-related CSR activities.”
November 3, 2021
Scientists: EVALI Cases May Have Been Covid

Photo: Nonwarit
Some victims of the vaping-related lung disease that swept the U.S. in 2019 were in fact suffering from Covid-19, reports the Global Times, a tabloid newspaper associated with the Chinese communist party.
After reviewing some 250 chest CT scans from published papers, a group of Chinese scientists and radiologists suspect that some patients were wrongly diagnosed with e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI). According to the Global Times, the scientists found that 16 EVALI patients suffered from viral infections, which indicates that they could have had Covid-19.
Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist at Wuhan University, said that due to the similarity of symptoms between EVALI and Covid-19 patients and since no nucleic acid detection kits were available at the time, it’s highly likely that some Covid-19 patients were misdiagnosed as EVALI patients in 2019.
The scientists are now urging U.S. officials to start screening for Covid-19 in patients who in 2019 were diagnosed with EVALI.
Covid is generally believed to have originated in Wuhan, but the Chinese communist party has on several occasions suggested that Covid-19 originated outside of China.
August 12, 2021
Smoking Plunged During Lockdown

Photo: sezerozger
South Africa’s 2020 Covid-19 lockdown and temporary tobacco sales ban resulted in the fastest fall in smoking prevalence in the country’s history, according to a new study published in Tobacco Control.
Four unpublished surveys estimate that between 16 percent to 49 percent of smokers quit during the five-month ban on tobacco sales. The threefold variance in outcomes is likely due to the characteristics of the respondents studied.
South Africa prohibited tobacco sales from March to August 2020 to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The aim was to decrease both disease severity among infected smokers and the demands on the health system.
The 2020 lockdown provided a unique opportunity to study smokers’ responses to the market disruption created by a sudden prohibition on cigarette sales. The ban was unexpected—creating challenges and opportunities for smokers and vapers. Smokers could maintain or change consumption levels—buying cigarettes illegally, if necessary—or stop smoking.
Public perceptions of the ban and the behavior of smokers were monitored by several surveys, but these produced inconsistent data. Despite this, the findings of some surveys were prominently reported in the media, and some also featured in litigation between the tobacco industry and the government.
In December, the country’s High Court ruled that the measure was unconstitutional.
Data showed that the prevalence of cigarette smoking declined during the lockdown and there was evidence that this was the fastest fall in smoking prevalence in the country’s history. The extent of the fall in smoking is uncertain because of methodological limitations, according to the authors, who suggest that better communications from government on the rationale for a ban on sales and a clamp down on illicit sales may have increased compliance.
Prevalence studies post-lockdown, using probability sampling, may show more accurately how many quit, how many relapsed and the size of the illicit market.
July 7, 2021
Plant-Based Vaccines to Exceed $584 Million

Photo: Baiya Phytopharm
The global plant-based vaccines market, currently valued at $43.7 million, will expand at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 50 percent from 2021 to 2028, according to Coherent Market Insights.
Key trends in the market include increasing research and development activities, increasing cases of influenza, ongoing clinical trials on plant-based vaccine and inorganic activities, such as collaborations by the market players.
Coherent Market Insights expects increasing research and development activities to bolster growth of the plant-based vaccines market. For instance, on Nov. 10, 2020, Medicago started conducting clinical trials for a plant-based Covid-19 vaccine. Medicago is also developing a VLP Quadrivalent plant-based vaccine for seasonal influenza. Currently, the influenza vaccine is in Phase II of the clinical trial. In both the cases, the company uses Nicotiana benthamiana, an Australian tobacco plant, to produce the vaccine.
British American Tobacco is also developing a Covid-19 vaccine based on tobacco plants, as are researchers in Thailand.
According to Coherent Market Insights, plant-based vaccines offer several benefits over conventional egg-based vaccine production in terms of efficiency, production time and enhancing the immune system of the patient.
However, there is no plant-derived vaccine approved to be marketed for human consumption to date. Challenges to develop effective vaccines include selection of antigen and plant expression host, uniformity of dosage and manufacturing of plant vaccines, according to good manufacturing practice procedures, according to Coherent Market Insights.
June 7, 2021
Study: Does Nicotine Protect Against Covid?

Photo: meryll
Researchers at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris are investigating whether Covid-19 can be treated with nicotine, reports RFI.
The project is in response to an observation made by doctors in the first months of the pandemic that there were fewer smokers among their most serious Covid cases. The “smokers’ paradox” was observed in China and in peer-reviewed studies around the world. A French study found that out of 11,000 hospitalized patients, only 8.5 percent were smokers compared to 25.4 percent of the general population.
Some suggest the nicotine in cigarettes could be slowing the virus. Many Covid-19 deaths are caused by an overreaction of the immune system. Scientists speculate that nicotine helps moderate such overreactions because it lowers the immune system’s activity.
Last year, French researchers analyzed public health data of people who used nicotine substitutes, like patches or gum. They noticed that those people had fewer Covid cases than those who did not use nicotine substitutes.
To test the hypotheses, Paris hospitals launched three clinical studies using nicotine patches. One of the studies, concluded in April, involved 220 patients in intensive care units for severe Covid infections. Half were given nicotine patches and the others were given placebos. The data is being analyzed, and the first results should be out in June.
While the findings are interesting, Pitie-Salpetriere doctor Zahir Amoura warns people against taking up smoking to protect themselves from Covid. “Smoking is a scourge. It’s important to repeat that,” he told RFI.
May 25, 2021
Tobacco Auctions Suspended Due to Covid

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
The Tobacco Board of India has suspended auction sales for a week due to the rapid spread of Covid-19 cases, reports The Times of India.
“With the situation going from bad to worse, we have decided to put off the auctions in view of the welfare of all those involved in the process, including growers, traders and officials,” said Tobacco Board Executive Director Addanki Sridhar Babu.
Sixty-eight employees of the Tobacco Board have reportedly tested positive for Covid-19, and one died due to the coronavirus during the auction season.
To date, Indian farmers have sold about 27 million kg against the expected total production of 110 million kg during the current season. Although the board authorized growers to produce about 115 million kg, production fell short due to weather conditions. Nonetheless, board officials noted that farmers produced “fine” quality leaf.
Growers fetched an average price of INR161.80 ($2.21) per kg compared with INR142 per kg last season.
The board will decide on May 24 whether to resume auction sales.
May 18, 2021