Health

A coronavirus research lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where Covid-19 first emerged, will not be visited by World Health Organisation investigators looking into the origins of the pandemic. WHO is sending a mission to Wuhan, in Hubei province, but has said investigators will be there only to “advance the …

The World Health Organization has expanded its coronavirus guidance to include the possibility in certain circumstances of airborne transmission, in which the virus could be spread through tiny droplets that linger in the air. The update came Thursday after an open letter signed by more than 200 scientists pressed the …

China’s embassy has warned its citizens of strange pneumonia more deadly than coronavirus spreading in the former Soviet republic. A leading health chief thinks there could be issues around testing for COVID-19. An unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Kazakhstan is likely to be the novel coronavirus, a World Health Organization (WHO) …

Gilead Sciences, Inc., said on Friday additional data from a late-stage study showed its antiviral remdesivir significantly improved clinical recovery in severely ill COVID-19 patients. Findings from an analysis of its late-stage study showed that 74.4 percent of remdesivir-treated patients recovered by day 14 versus 59 percent of patients receiving …

China’s embassy in Kazakhstan has warned its citizens to take precautions against an outbreak of pneumonia in the country that it says is more lethal than COVID-19. It said in a statement on its official WeChat account late on Thursday that there had been a “significant increase” in cases in …

The novel coronavirus pandemic could lead to a wave of brain damage in infected patients, warned British researchers in a new study released Wednesday. Experts at the University College London (UCL) were the latest to describe that Covid-19 could cause neurological complications including stroke, nerve damage, and potentially fatal brain …

Africa now has more than a half-million confirmed coronavirus cases, while South Africa’s health minister declared Wednesday that “we have now reached the surge.” The continent-wide total is over 509,000, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after South Africa recorded another day of more than 10,000 …

Authorities in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia have closed several tourist spots after a case of bubonic plague was confirmed this week. The case was discovered in Bayannur, located northwest of the capital Beijing. Five nearby grassland scenic points have now been closed, with visitors “strictly prohibited from entering …

The European Commission has struck deals with drugmakers Roche and Merck KGaA to secure supplies of experimental treatments for COVID-19, a Commission source told Reuters on Wednesday. The deals cover Roche’s arthritis medicine RoActemra and Merck’s multiple sclerosis drug Rebif – both seen as potential treatments for COVID-19 – and …

The World Health Organization on Tuesday acknowledged “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus, after a group of scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people. “We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol …

China is forging ahead in the race to develop a vaccine to help control the COVID-19 pandemic, with Sinovac Biotech’s (SVA.O) experimental vaccine set to become the country’s second and the world’s third to enter final stage testing later this month. While a laggard in the global vaccine industry, China, …

One of the world’s leading epidemiologists thinks the coronavirus may not actually have originated in China, with samples of Covid-19 surfacing from Spain in early 2019. The coronavirus story keeps getting stranger… Dr. Tom Jefferson is a British epidemiologist working for the Cochrane Collaboration’s acute respiratory infections group. He also …

The U.S. government has awarded Novavax Inc $1.6 billion to cover testing, commercialization, and manufacturing of a potential coronavirus vaccine in the United States, with the aim of delivering 100 million doses by January 2021. Novavax shares jumped 35% in premarket trade. The award is the biggest yet from “Operation …

A total of 10% of healthcare workers tested positive, while police and fire crews also saw higher than average incidences The third and final round of a coronavirus prevalence study has confirmed that 5.2% of residents of Spain have developed antibodies for the virus. But according to the results of …

On Sunday, the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined to criticize President Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that 99% of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.” As the United States neared 130,000 deaths from COVID-19 this Independence Day weekend, Trump asserted at a speech yesterday that the U.S. …

The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. If airborne transmission is a significant factor …

China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Saturday that the so-called “G4” strain of swine flu virus is not new and does not infect or sicken humans and animals easily, rebuffing a study published earlier this week. That study, by a team of Chinese scientists and published by …

Officials in Brussels have approved remdesivir to treat severe cases of Covid-19, just days after the US effectively stockpiled the world’s entire supply of the antiviral medication. “We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to secure efficient treatments or vaccine against the coronavirus,” EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides …

Chinese doctors have given their patients the first sheets of prescriptions of a new, home-developed breast cancer drug. In Beijing, Inetetamab, a targeted injection drug for metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer patients, was first prescribed in the cancer hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences on Wednesday, 12 days after …

A COVID-19 vaccine developed by German biotech firm BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has shown potential and was found to be well tolerated in early-stage human trials, the companies said on Wednesday. The drug is one of 17 being tested on humans in a frantic global race to find …