Few nations have escaped the economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but new research suggests low- and middle-income countries have been hit the hardest, suffering sharper declines in standard of living and food security.

To account for the scope of economic shockwaves triggered by the pandemic, researchers conducted several thousand phone surveys in Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, amassing large amounts of data on job and income losses.

The data -- detailed Friday in the journal Science Advances -- suggests the socioeconomic drop-off in less-developed countries has been especially harsh, resulting in higher levels of food insecurity.

Many of the surveyed households said they were struggling to meet basic nutritional needs.

"COVID-19 and its economic shock present a stark threat to residents of low- and middle-income countries -- where most of the world's population resides -- which lack the social safety nets that exist in rich countries," study co-author Susan Athey said in a news release.

"The evidence we've collected show dire economic consequences, including rising food insecurity and falling income, which, if left unchecked, could thrust millions of vulnerable households into poverty," said Athey, economist at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

Reported income losses in the nine countries ranged between 8 percent in Kenya and 86 percent in Colombia.

The mean reported income loss was 70 percent. Reported job losses ranged from 6 percent in Sierra Leone to 51 percent in Colombia. The median job loss rate across the nine countries was 29 percent.

The survey data showed landless agricultural households in Bangladesh and rural households in Sierra Leone were most likely to report skipping meals or reducing portions as a result of economic hardships brought on by the pandemic.

In addition to suffering income losses, many respondents said they had lost access to markets as a result of lockdowns and restrictions on transportation and movement.

Survey responses suggest households in lower- and middle-income countries have also lost access to health services, including child vaccinations, as well as child care and education.

"The pandemic's economic shock in these countries, where so many people depend on casual labor to feed their families, causes deprivations and adverse consequences in the long term, including excess mortality," said study co-author Ashish Shenoy, researcher at the University of California, Davis.

"Our findings underscore the importance of gathering survey data to understand the effects of the crisis and inform effective policy responses. We demonstrate the efficacy of large-scale phone surveys to provide this crucial data," said Shenoy, a researcher at the University of California, Davis.

China approves second domestic Covid-19 vaccine
Beijing (AFP) Feb 6, 2021 - China's drug authorities have given "conditional" approval for a second Covid-19 vaccine, Sinovac's CoronaVac jab, the pharmaceutical company said Saturday.

The vaccine has already been rolled out to key groups at higher risk of exposure to coronavirus but Saturday's approval allows for its use on the general public.

A conditional approval helps hustle emergency drugs to market in cases when clinical trials are yet to meet normal standards but indicate therapies will work.

The approval comes after multiple domestic and overseas trials of the vaccine in countries including Brazil and Turkey, although "efficacy and safety results need to be further confirmed", Sinovac said in a statement.

Fellow Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm received a similar conditional green light in December to put its vaccine on the market.

Sinovac said trials in Brazil had shown around 50 percent efficacy in preventing infection and 80 percent efficacy in preventing cases requiring medical intervention.

"The results show that the vaccine has good safety and immunogenic effect on people of all age groups," Sinovac said Saturday.

Meanwhile Sinopharm said in December that its vaccine had a 79.34 percent efficacy rate, lower than rival jabs developed in the West by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- with 95 and 94 percent rates respectively.

China has been racing to develop homegrown jabs and aims to vaccinate 50 million people before the start of the Lunar New Year in mid-February.

The holiday normally spurs a travel rush with hundreds of millions traversing the country -- though authorities are encouraging people to stay home this year through a mixture of restrictions and incentives.

As China ramps up its vaccine campaign, authorities have repeatedly assured the public of the jab's safety and efficacy, despite not releasing any detailed clinical trial data.

At the same time, Beijing has been promoting its vaccines abroad in what analysts have called "vaccine diplomacy" to earn goodwill after facing criticism for its early handling of the outbreak.

China's foreign ministry on Wednesday said it planned to provide 10 million vaccine doses to the WHO-backed international vaccine distribution programme Covax.

Beijing has also pledged to share the vaccine at a fair cost -- a potential boost for poorer Asian countries who are otherwise reliant on limited distribution offered by the Covax scheme.

Countries including Senegal, Indonesia, and Hungary have procured millions of vaccine doses from Chinese pharmaceutical firms.

But take-up has been slower abroad for Chinese vaccines compared to jabs from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, as little information has been published about the safety or efficacy of Chinese vaccines.

Chinese vaccine makers also have chequered reputations, after major scandals at home involving expired or poor quality products.

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Macron warns of risks of Chinese vaccines
Paris (AFP) Feb 4, 2021
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday about the lack of information about China's coronavirus vaccines, saying they might even encourage the development of variants if they are not effective. Speaking to the Atlantic Council think-tank, Macron conceded that China's early "diplomatic successes" in distributing vaccines to other countries could be seen as "a little bit humiliating for us as (Western) leaders". But he warned that the efficacy of a jab from Sinopharma or Sinovac was unkno ... read more