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The Cumbre VIeja volcano spews lava and smoke as it continues to erupt on the Canary Island of La Palma, as seen from El Paso, Spain, on Oct 17, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Sergio Perez) - 

There is no immediate end in sight to the volcanic eruption that has caused chaos on the Spanish isle of La Palma since it began about a month ago, the president of the Canary Islands said on Sunday (Oct 17).

There were 42 seismic tremors on the island on Sunday, the largest of which measured 4.3, according to the Spanish National Geographical Institute.

"There are no signs that an end of the eruption is imminent even though this is the greatest desire of everyone," President Angel Víctor Torres said at a Socialist party conference in Valencia, citing the view of scientists.

Streams of lava have laid waste to more than 742 hectares of land and destroyed almost 2,000 buildings on La Palma since the volcano started erupting on Sep 19.

About 7,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on the island, which has about 83,000 inhabitants and forms part of the Canary Islands archipelago off northwestern Africa.

All of the 38 flights which were scheduled to arrive or take off from La Palma airport on Sunday were cancelled because of ash from the volcano, state airport operator Aena said, but the airport there remains open//CNA

Mayor of Hodmezovasarhely and opposition candidate for prime minister, Peter Marki-Zay addresses participants during a campaign rally during the second round of the Hungarian opposition primaries at Madach Square in Budapest on Oct 10, 2021. (Photo: AFP/Attila Kisbenedek) - 

Peter Marki-Zay, a conservative provincial mayor, was chosen as the unified opposition challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at next year's election, after winning a primary vote on Sunday (Oct 17).

Marki-Zay, a practising Catholic and father-of-seven, defeated Klara Dobrev, an MEP with the leftist Democratic Coalition party (DK) by a margin of 57-43 percent in Sunday's second-round run-off.

"We want a new, cleaner, honest Hungary, not just to replace Orban or his party," Marki-Zay told jubiliant supporters in Budapest referring to the nationalist premier's ruling right-wing Fidesz party.

"From now on I support Peter Marki-Zay," Dobrev said during a concession speech, urging opposition unity after a bruising election campaign.

The primary was organised by a six-party opposition alliance formed last year in an effort to combat the mainly first-past-the-post election system that favours Orban and his ruling right-wing Fidesz party.

Hungary's first-ever primary contest, the vote was designed to select just one contender to oppose Orban - as well as single candidates for each constituency to go up against Fidesz in April's elections.

Praising the primary election process, Marki-Zay said it had selected clean candidates nationwide who would be able to get rid of "the most corrupt system in Hungary's thousand-year-old history".

Opinion polls have put the opposition alliance neck-and-neck with Fidesz, and gave Marki-Zay a better chance of defeating Orban than Dobrev.

As a conservative and Catholic "Marki-Zay was the primary winner least wanted by Fidesz," analyst Robert Laszlo told AFP.

"He seems to be capable of attracting new, yet undecided voters without frightening away the liberal-left voter base, Fidesz will be forced now to rewrite their campaign strategy for next year's election," he said.

After the first round of the opposition primaries last month, that saw more than 600,000 people take part, Marki-Zay came third.

But he persuaded the runner-up - liberal Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony, who had been the favourite - to withdraw and endorse him in the run-off against Dobrev.

During the campaign he argued that only he could appeal to both leftist voters and conservatives tired of Orban's often divisive policies, such as anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ drives.

An economist and engineer who lived in the US and Canada for five years, Marki-Zay grabbed national attention in 2018 when he won the mayoralty in the small city of Hodmezovasarhely.

Although the southern city with a population of 44,000 had been a Fidesz stronghold for decades, Marki-Zay rallied cross-party support in what he called the blueprint for opposition success nationwide.

Despite having no party machinery or significant funding, Marki-Zay was also boosted during the primary race by support from younger voters open to his anti-elite and anti-corruption messages.

Dobrev, a vice president of the European Parliament since 2019 who had been hoping to become Hungary's first woman prime minister. She had emphasised her greater experience and accused her rival of "unsuitability" for the top job.

But polls indicated her weakness was her husband. Former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted lying in 2006 during a leaked private speech and has been relentlessly attacked by Orban ever since.

With the backing of DK, Hungary's largest opposition party headed by Gyurcsany, Dobrev, 49, won the primary's first round, but fell short of the outright majority that would have secured her the candidacy without a run-off vote.

Organisers hailed the primaries as an "amazing success", having mobilised over 800,000 voters, almost 10 percent of the electorate in the 9.8 million population EU member.

"That's a lot of people even compared to countries with a long tradition of primaries, unlike Hungary where this has never happened before," Marta V Naszaly, a Budapest district mayor who volunteered to count votes, told AFP Sunday.

"It gives legitimacy. The opposition will have candidates in next year's election who have a chance to change the government," she added//CNA

An experimental COVID-19 treatment pill called molnupiravir, being developed by Merck & Co and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is seen in this undated handout photo released by Merck & Co. (File photo: Handout via Reuters) - 

The plan to roll out Merck & Co's promising antiviral pill to treat COVID-19 risks repeating the inequities of vaccine distribution, potentially leaving the nations with the greatest need once again at the back of the line, international health groups say.

For example, only about 5 per cent of Africa’s population is immunised, creating an urgent need for therapeutics that could keep people out of hospitals. That compares with more than a 70 per cent inoculation rate in most wealthy nations.

Merck on Oct 11 applied for US emergency clearance of the first pill for COVID-19 after it cut hospitalisations and deaths by 50 per cent in a large clinical trial. The medicine, made with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, could gain authorisation as soon as December.

The US drugmaker has taken the unusual pandemic step of licensing several generics of its antiviral molnupiravir before its branded version was even authorised for marketing.

But international health officials said even that is not enough for the medicine to reach many in low- and middle-income countries in large enough numbers, while noting shortcomings and red tape among global organisations that could further slow distribution.

Merck this year plans to produce 10 million treatment courses of the pill, which is taken twice a day for five days, and another 20 million next year.

In addition, its licensing deals with eight Indian drugmakers will allow cheaper generic versions for 109 low- and middle-income countries including in Africa, a move international groups acknowledge is a positive concession.

But as wealthy nations secure molnupiravir supply deals - the United States has already locked up 1.7 million courses with an option for 3.5 million more by January of 2023 at about US$700 per course - concerns grow over who might be left out.

Merck said it has worked on the technology transfer needed to start generic manufacturing, in contrast to vaccine makers who continue to resist calls to waive patents or allow for generic versions to boost supplies.

But a recent report prepared for the United Nations' Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator program tasked with buying COVID-19 therapeutics for poor countries cited concerns that UN agencies were not moving quickly enough to secure adequate volumes of potential new treatments ahead of time, including Merck's drug.

Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), a United Nations-backed public health organisation, has 24 companies signed up and willing to make the drug if Merck agrees to expand the licences.

“If you're not in the licence, you're relying on Merck, and it looks to us that that could mean a potential supply shortfall as well as overpricing," said Peter Maybarduk of Public Citizen, who sits on the MPP governance board. He suggested that could lead to wealthy countries outbidding poor nations for the medicine.

It is unclear how many generic pills will be available or when. The licensed Indian manufacturers including Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Hetero Labs, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals declined to provide details on production plans.

In addition, manufacturing for low-income countries in many nations also requires World Health Organization (WHO) approval, a regulatory process that typically takes months.

Merck said it is committed to providing timely access to its drug globally with plans for tiered pricing aligned with a country’s ability to pay. A spokesperson confirmed it is in discussions about expanding licences for generic molnupiravir "to build sufficient global supply of quality-assured product to meet orders globally."

But middle-income countries will be hard pressed to negotiate against the richest nations, another MPP official said.

The governments of Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia said they already had deals or were negotiating supply contracts with Merck. The EU is considering buying the pill after Merck applies for authorisation in Europe.

The eight generic manufacturers chosen by Merck all have WHO pre-qualified facilities to allow them to supply buyers like the Global Fund, according to Paul Schaper, Merck's executive director of global public policy. They will set their pricing and decide how much they plan to manufacture.

“What we are anticipating and hoping for is that they will compete with each other on pricing,”  Schaper said//CNA

A health worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a patient in Rome, Italy, on Sep 21, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi) - 

Italy reported 24 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday (Oct 17), up from 14 the previous day, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 2,437 from 2,983.

Italy has registered 131,541 deaths linked to COVID-19 since the outbreak in February last year. It has the second highest toll in Europe behind Britain, and the ninth highest in the world.

The number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 2,386 on Sunday, up from 2,371 a day earlier.

The number of patients in intensive care with COVID-19 fell to 349 from 352.

Some 381,051 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the space of 24 hours, compared with a previous 472,535, the health ministry said//CNA