Health

Europe’s drug regulator has found a possible link between very rare heart inflammation and COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, it said on Friday. The conditions, myocarditis and pericarditis, must be listed as side-effects of the two mRNA vaccines, the safety committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said, adding …

Pfizer and BioNTech say that a third COVID-19 booster dose given about six months after the second shot improves vaccine efficacy against new coronavirus variants and that this is backed by initial data from their study on booster shots. While the COVID-19 vaccine remains 95% effective in preventing serious cases, …

Authorities in India’s southern Kerala region have issued a statewide alert after a case of the Zika virus was confirmed, officials said Friday. A further 13 suspected cases were being investigated, state health minister Veena George said. A 24-year-old pregnant woman was found to be infected with the mosquito-borne disease …

While the world reels under the effects of the Delta variant, a new Covid-19 mutation is now on the radar of several countries. The Lambda variant, or C.37, believed to have originated from Peru, was designated as a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 14. …

Newly-published research from France’s Pasteur Institute suggests that people are mostly protected from the Delta variant of coronavirus after two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. The study, published in Nature journal on Thursday, tested the effects of exposure to the hyper-infectious strain first identified in India on 59 vaccinated people …

The recent emergence of a virus that typically sickens children in colder months has baffled U.S. pediatricians and put many infants in the hospital with troublesome coughs and breathing trouble. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of cold-like symptoms but can be serious for infants and the …

The leader of Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state on Wednesday ordered a week-long extension of Sydney’s COVID-19 lockdown, warning new cases are bound to rise as the country’s biggest city grapples with the highly infectious Delta variant. Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia’s 25 million people, was plunged …

Warning by top WHO expert against premature rush back to normality comes amid growing concerns over spread of Delta variant of coronavirus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned governments around the world against easing COVID-19 restrictions too soon, saying countries that did so risked paying a heavy price for …

Aid agencies have distributed a strawberry-flavored tablet for children living with HIV in six African countries, the first generic pediatric version of a key anti-retroviral, global health agency UNITAID said on Sunday. UNITAID and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) funding procured 100,000 packs of the dolutegravir formulation across Nigeria, Malawi, …

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that coronavirus variants are moving faster than the global vaccine rollout, urging leaders to increase the pace or risk being overwhelmed. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, noted that the highly contagious Delta variant, first identified in India, is “outpacing” vaccinations, …

Indonesia has ordered oxygen makers to prioritise medical needs amid growing demand from COVID-19 patients, the government said on Sunday, following more than 60 deaths in a hospital where the supply of the life-saving gas was almost exhausted. The world’s fourth most populous nation is battling one of Asia’s worst …

Portugal said on Saturday it hoped to vaccinate a further 1.7 million people against COVID-19 over the next two weeks as authorities scramble to contain a surge in infections caused by the more contagious Delta variant. Cases in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million, jumped by 2,605 on …

The world is in a very “dangerous period” of the COVID-19 pandemic compounded by more transmissible variants like Delta, which is continuing to evolve and mutate, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned. He said in countries with low vaccination coverage, terrible scenes of hospitals overflowing are again …

Authorities are trying to increase the speed and effectiveness of vaccinations as the highly infectious Delta variant spreads. Germany is recommending that all people who get a first shot of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine switch to a different type of vaccine for their second shot. The aim is to increase …

UN health agency sounds the alarm and calls for ‘discipline’ as highly infectious Delta variant races through the region. The third wave of infections is now inevitable unless citizens and legislators are “disciplined”, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns, saying a 10-week decline in new coronavirus infections across Europe has …

Medical experts fear a fresh spike in cases by September or October as pressure grows on the government for tougher restrictions. A resurgence of COVID cases could lead to France having the fourth wave, a top scientist has warned. The French government’s leading scientific adviser Professor Jean-Francois Delfraissy said the …

Russia on Wednesday reported 669 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, a record number of fatalities for the second day in a row, according to a government tally. The country is grappling with a spike of infections spurred by the highly infectious Delta variant, and President Vladimir Putin was …

Immune cells are still organizing to fight the coronavirus months after inoculation, scientists reported. The vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, scientists reported on Monday. The findings add to growing evidence that most …

India’s daily COVID-19 infections rose by 50,040 on Sunday, official data showed, as concerns grew about the detection of the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus in some states.

President Joko Widodo said Indonesia facing an ‘extraordinary situation’ as cases go past 2.05 million.