The coronavirus vaccine skeptics who changed their minds The White House and public health experts are studying the Americans who went from "no" to "yes." Dan Diamond Washington Post

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NIH to invest $29 million to address COVID-19 disparities

To bolster research to help communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19, the National Institutes of Health is funding $29 million in additional grants for the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities. This funding was supported by the American Rescue Plan. The awards will provide $15 million to 11 teams already conducting research and outreach to help strengthen COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access, as well as testing and treatment, in communities of color. An additional $14 million will fund 10 new research teams to extend the reach of COVID-19 community-engaged research and outreach.

“The goal of this effort is to foster community-engagement research in communities which have been hit hardest by the pandemic,” said Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). “The alliance is designed to meet people where they are with the help of trusted messengers, including family doctors, pastors, and community health workers, and to forge lasting partnerships to address health disparities.”

Moderna will supply 34 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine this year and Sweden has donated 1 million AstraZeneca shots to the global COVAX program, a small boost as it struggles to get stocks to inoculate the world’s poorest people.

The advance purchase contract agreed with Moderna is for up to 500 million doses, but the rollout will only start in the fourth quarter, with 34 million doses available this year, the GAVI vaccine alliance said on Monday.

The bulk — 466 million — would only become available next year, it said.

The deal expands the program’s pipeline of vaccines to eight and contains options to potentially access doses of variant-adapted vaccines in the future, it said.

The agreement follows the U.S. drugmaker’s shot being approved for emergency use listing by the WHO on Friday, a prerequisite for COVAX eligibility. read more

GAVI runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility with the World Health Organization.

The Swedish donation is the second by a European Union member after France last month amid mounting concerns about growing inequity in vaccine distribution after wealthy countries built up stocks of shots for its citizens. read more