China Reports Latest COVID Situation in Meeting with WHO

Patients lie on beds in a hallway in the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Staff
Patients lie on beds in a hallway in the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Staff
TT

China Reports Latest COVID Situation in Meeting with WHO

Patients lie on beds in a hallway in the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Staff
Patients lie on beds in a hallway in the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Staff

Officials and experts from China on Thursday attended an online meeting with the World Health Organization (WHO), China's national health commission said in a statement.

During the meeting Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention officials and experts from Southeast University reported on China's latest COVID-19 prevention and control measures, its monitoring of mutated virus strains, vaccination efforts and the treatment of infections, the health commission said.

The WHO's emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said on Wednesday that Chinese officials were under-representing data on several fronts, some of the UN agency's most critical remarks to date.

China has played down the severity of the situation. The state-run Global Times wrote on Wednesday that COVID had peaked in Beijing and several cities, citing interviews with doctors.

China's CanSino Biologics Inc reported on Thursday "positive" interim data on its experimental COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine in a mid-stage clinical trial.

The clinical study was to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity for adults aged 18 years and above, the pharmaceutical firm said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The vaccine, called CS-2034, was tested as a booster on people who had received three doses of an inactivated vaccine, it said. Such vaccines, like those made by Sinopharm and SinoVac, are the type used in China.

China has nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved for use, but none are based on the messenger RNA technology used in the shots developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

The Chinese shots have also not been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant.

CanSino obtained approval to start the clinical trial on mRNA vaccine in April.



Türkiye Insists on Two States for Ethnically Divided Cyprus as the UN Looks to Restart Peace Talks

UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
TT

Türkiye Insists on Two States for Ethnically Divided Cyprus as the UN Looks to Restart Peace Talks

UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Türkiye on Wednesday again insisted on a two-state peace accord in ethnically divided Cyprus as the United Nations prepares to meet with all sides in early spring in hopes of restarting formal talks to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Cyprus “must continue on the path of a two-state solution” and that expending efforts on other arrangements ending Cyprus’ half-century divide would be “a waste of time.”
Fidan spoke to reporters after talks with Ersin Tatar, leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots whose declaration of independence in 1983 in Cyprus’ northern third is recognized only by Türkiye.
Cyprus’ ethnic division occurred in 1974 when Türkiye invaded in the wake of a coup, sponsored by the junta then ruling Greece, that aimed to unite the island in the eastern Mediterranean with the Greek state.
The most recent major push for a peace deal collapsed in 2017.
Since then, Türkiye has advocated for a two-state arrangement in which the numerically fewer Turkish Cypriots would never be the minority in any power-sharing arrangement.
But Greek Cypriots do not support a two-state deal that they see as formalizing the island’s partition and perpetuating what they see as a threat of a permanent Turkish military presence on the island.
Greek Cypriot officials have maintained that the 2017 talks collapsed primarily on Türkiye’s insistence on permanently keeping at least some of its estimated 35,000 troops currently in the island's breakaway north, and on enshrining military intervention rights in any new peace deal.
The UN the European Union and others have rejected a two-state deal for Cyprus, saying the only way forward is a federation agreement with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot zones.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is preparing to host an informal meeting in Switzerland in March to hear what each side envisions for a peace deal. Last year, an envoy Guterres dispatched to Cyprus reportedly concluded that there's no common ground for a return to talks.
The island’s Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides says he’s ready to resume formal talks immediately but has ruled out any discussion on a two-state arrangement.
Tatar, leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, said the meeting will bring together the two sides in Cyprus, the foreign ministers of “guarantor powers” Greece and Türkiye and a senior British official to chart “the next steps” regarding Cyprus’ future.
A peace deal would not only remove a source of instability in the eastern Mediterranean, but could also expedite the development of natural gas deposits inside Cyprus' offshore economic zone that Türkiye disputes.