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'Hybrid Immunity' Gives Best Covid Protection

A man receives a dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dubai, United Arab Emirates December 28, 2020. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo
A man receives a dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dubai, United Arab Emirates December 28, 2020. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo
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'Hybrid Immunity' Gives Best Covid Protection

A man receives a dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dubai, United Arab Emirates December 28, 2020. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo
A man receives a dose of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Dubai, United Arab Emirates December 28, 2020. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo

People with the "hybrid immunity" of having been both fully vaccinated and previously infected with Covid-19 have the strongest protection against the virus, two new studies said on Friday.

After two years of a pandemic that has seen nearly 500 million people infected and billions vaccinated, the studies highlighted the importance of getting jabbed for those who have natural immunity after recovering from the disease, AFP said.

One of the two studies published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal analyzed the health data of more than 200,000 people in 2020 and 2021 in hard-hit Brazil, which has the world's second-largest Covid death toll.

It found that for people who have already had Covid, Pfizer and AstraZeneca's vaccines offered 90 percent effectiveness against hospitalization and death, China's CoronaVac had 81 percent and Johnson & Johnson's one-shot jab had 58 percent.

"All four of these vaccines have proven to provide significant extra protection for those with a previous Covid-19 infection," said study author Julio Croda of the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul.

"Hybrid immunity due to exposure to natural infection and vaccination is likely to be the norm globally and might provide long-term protection even against emerging variants," Pramod Kumar Garg of India's Translational Health Science and Technology Institute said in a comment piece linked to the study.

A study using Sweden's nationwide register up to October 2021 meanwhile found that people who recovered from Covid retained a high level of protection against re-infection for up to 20 months.

And people with two-vaccine-dose hybrid immunity had a further 66 percent lower risk of re-infection than those with just natural immunity.

Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia who was not involved in the study, told AFP that the 20 months of "very good protection" from natural immunity was "far better than we would expect for the original two-dose vaccine schedule".

But he cautioned that both studies were completed before the Omicron variant became dominant across the world, and that it had "notably dropped the protective value of a prior infection".

A study in Qatar published on the medRxiv pre-publication website last week gave an insight into the protection offered by hybrid immunity against Omicron.

It found that three vaccine doses had 52 percent effectiveness against symptomatic infection of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant -- but that number jumped to 77 percent when the patient had been previously infected.

The study, which has not been peer reviewed, found that "hybrid immunity resulting from prior infection and recent booster vaccination confers the strongest protection" against both the BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants.

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Varieties

Kyiv Botanical Garden's Plants Wither Due to Frost, Power Cuts

Doctor of Biological Sciences Roman Ivannikov, Head of the Department of Tropical and Subtropical Plants of the Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, speaks during an AFP interview in the garden's main greenhouse in Kyiv on February 11, 2026. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
Doctor of Biological Sciences Roman Ivannikov, Head of the Department of Tropical and Subtropical Plants of the Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, speaks during an AFP interview in the garden's main greenhouse in Kyiv on February 11, 2026. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
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Kyiv Botanical Garden's Plants Wither Due to Frost, Power Cuts

Doctor of Biological Sciences Roman Ivannikov, Head of the Department of Tropical and Subtropical Plants of the Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, speaks during an AFP interview in the garden's main greenhouse in Kyiv on February 11, 2026. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
Doctor of Biological Sciences Roman Ivannikov, Head of the Department of Tropical and Subtropical Plants of the Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, speaks during an AFP interview in the garden's main greenhouse in Kyiv on February 11, 2026. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)

Roman Ivannikov has spent around 30 years pampering orchids, azaleas and figs at Ukraine's National Botanical Garden, but power cuts triggered by Russian strikes are threatening to freeze his cherished collection of tropical plants.

Moscow has been pummeling Ukrainian energy sites with drones and missiles, plunging thousands of households into darkness during the harshest winter since it started its invasion four years ago.

The almost-daily barrages, paired with the cold snap, have put lives at risk and created an unprecedented threat for Ivannikov's pride and joy: a collection of almost 4,000 species.

"Our children grew up on the paths of this garden. We have poured our lives into this," Ivannikov, 51, told AFP, struggling to fight back tears.

The temperature in the garden's main greenhouse was 12C.

"It's not even the lower bound of normal," Ivannikov said.

The temperature dipped even lower on four nights over recent weeks, when the heating cut off entirely.

Wearing a thick navy jacket over a wool sweater, Ivannikov, the head of the department of tropical and subtropical plants, picked up a leaf that had just come rustling down.

"You can see how many fallen leaves there are... Perfectly healthy leaves that could have kept feeding the plant and functioning for months are falling down," he said.

The plant, he explained, was optimizing energy needs and shedding part of its leaves in the lower tiers so it can keep the leaves at the top and "survive in these conditions".

He, fellow staff and scores of volunteers were shuffling between tasks like firing up stoves and spreading protective covers on a collection of smaller plants, like orchids.

Volodymyr Vynogradov, 66, has signed up to help cut firewood used to heat the greenhouses.

"There needs to be heating for the azaleas," he told AFP, his cheeks rosy from cold and a pile of split logs scattered around.

"Physically, it's a little bit of a warm-up... That's why I decided to help somehow. For myself and for the sake of flowers."

The garden's collection has been laboriously reassembled after it had perished during World War II -- through decades of purchases, exchanges and numerous scientific missions that took Ivannikov's senior colleagues across several continents.

They "used to go to places and bring back plants from areas where those forests are no longer there", making those replanted at the Kyiv garden susceptible to "irrecoverable losses".

"Those plants have been preserved with us, and that underscores their uniqueness: if we lose them, we won't be able to restore them," Ivannikov said.

Individual specimens have already wilted, but the scale of damage is impossible to assess -- the destructive impact of the cold could only start to show in weeks or even months to come.

"Flowering intervals will change, plants will bloom but won't be able to set seed for a year or two. Or, for example, they'll set seed, but it won't be viable -- it will be dead," Ivannikov, who is trying to stay hopeful, said.

"We just have to hold on until summer, until spring -- make it through however many days are needed."

His dream, he said, is to create a "large national bonsai collection", something he had already begun laying the groundwork for.

The institution meanwhile offers organized tours and works with military servicemen and displaced Ukrainians who find solace in gardening work.

"They feel alive and want to see what comes next. They see a future, they want to keep living -- and that's our mission."

Varieties

Sunbed Ads Spreading Harmful Misinformation

Cancer charities and doctors say sunbeds are linked to higher rates of melanoma and other skin cancers (Getty images) 
Cancer charities and doctors say sunbeds are linked to higher rates of melanoma and other skin cancers (Getty images) 
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Sunbed Ads Spreading Harmful Misinformation

Cancer charities and doctors say sunbeds are linked to higher rates of melanoma and other skin cancers (Getty images) 
Cancer charities and doctors say sunbeds are linked to higher rates of melanoma and other skin cancers (Getty images) 

Harmful misinformation claiming sunbeds offer health benefits in winter is being spread by tanning companies on social media, the BBC has found.

BBC identified hundreds of adverts on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook saying sunbeds can boost energy and treat skin conditions or mental health problems.

One suggested that going on a sunbed for “eight minutes” could prevent colds and flu, while another claimed that UV rays could “stimulate the thyroid gland” to help someone lose weight.

Claims like these are “irresponsible” and “potentially dangerous,” the government told BBC - while an NHS dermatologist described the amount of sunbed misinformation on social media as “genuinely terrifying.”

The findings come after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned six tanning adverts for making irresponsible health claims or suggesting sunbeds were safe.

Cancer charities and doctors are clear about the risks of using sunbeds - and say the machines are linked to higher rates of melanoma and other skin cancers.

Using a bed before the age of 35 increases the risk of melanoma by 59% later in life, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Sunbed Association, which represents half the UK's tanning shops, says the ASA and WHO are using “outdated data,” but encourages its members not to use medical claims in advertising.

Young people are by far the biggest sunbed users in the UK - about one in seven 18-to-24-year-olds say they used one in the past year, double the average for all age groups, according to a 2025 YouGov survey.

Other data suggests nearly a quarter of under-25s wrongly believe sunbeds actually reduce the risk of getting skin cancer.

Varieties

Rain Further Batters Storm-Hit Portugal, Thousands Evacuated

A flooded area in Ceira, Coimbra, Portugal, February 11, 2026. (Reuters)
A flooded area in Ceira, Coimbra, Portugal, February 11, 2026. (Reuters)
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Rain Further Batters Storm-Hit Portugal, Thousands Evacuated

A flooded area in Ceira, Coimbra, Portugal, February 11, 2026. (Reuters)
A flooded area in Ceira, Coimbra, Portugal, February 11, 2026. (Reuters)

More ‌heavy rain flooded several rural areas in the north of storm-battered Portugal on Wednesday, leaving levees at risk of bursting around the medieval city of Coimbra and forcing authorities to evacuate about 3,000 residents as a precaution.

A succession of deadly storms has hammered mostly central and southern parts of the country since late January, blowing roofs off houses, flooding several towns and leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity for days. At least 15 people have died as a consequence of the storms, including indirect ‌victims.

As the ‌storms let up this week, a weather ‌phenomenon ⁠known as an "atmospheric river" - ⁠a wide corridor of concentrated water vapor carrying massive amounts of moisture from the tropics - brought new downpours, affecting the north to a greater extent.

RISK OF DAM OVERFLOWING

Municipal authorities in Coimbra ordered the precautionary evacuation late on Tuesday of around 3,000 people most at risk from the River Mondego bursting its banks, ⁠and the operation was still under way on ‌Wednesday, with police making door-to-door checks ‌and bussing residents to shelters.

Regional Civil Protection official Carlos Tavares ‌said on Wednesday the situation could worsen between late Wednesday ‌and midday Thursday, as the rain could cause the Aguieira dam, 35 km northeast of Coimbra, "to overflow, sweep away levees and trigger further flooding".

Part of Coimbra's ancient city wall, on a hillside in one ‌of Europe's oldest university towns and a UNESCO World Heritage site, collapsed, shutting the road below ⁠and forcing ⁠the closure of the municipal market, the city hall said.

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro was due in Coimbra to oversee the emergency response after Interior Minister Maria Lucia Amaral resigned following criticism from opposition parties and local communities over what they described as the authorities' slow and failed response to devastating Storm Kristin two weeks ago.

In central Portugal, just across the River Tagus from Lisbon, authorities evacuated the village of Porto Brandao due to the risk of landslides, and around 30 people were removed from their homes after a landslide in the neighboring beachside area of Caparica.