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LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — At least two gorillas at California’s San Diego Zoo have caught the coronavirus, the first known instance of natural transmission to great apes, officials said Monday. Two primates began coughing last week and have since tested positive for Covid-19, while a third is showing symptoms, Governor Gavin Newsom said. They are thought to have contracted the virus from an asymptomatic zoo worker, though this has yet to be confirmed. […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — More than half a million people were placed under lockdown in Beijing on Monday as the government imposed strict measures to stamp out a handful of Covid-19 cases. China has largely brought the virus under control, but is tackling a number of local infections with lockdowns and mass testing. Authorities are keen to stem any outbreak in the capital — home to over 20 million people — particularly ahead of […]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysia will impose strict new curbs in over half the country to fight a coronavirus surge, the prime minister said Monday, warning the country’s healthcare system was at “breaking point”. It joins other Asian nations, from Japan to Australia, which kept their outbreaks under control in the early stages but have been forced to introduce new measures in recent days. Malaysia had relaxed restrictions as infections fell to almost zero […]
KOROR, Palau (AFP) — The remote Pacific nation of Micronesia recorded its first case of Covid-19 on Monday, ending its run as one of the few places on Earth without the coronavirus. President David Panuelo acknowledged the development was “alarming” for the country’s 100,000 inhabitants but said the case had been contained at the border. “For this reason, citizens across the nation should remain calm,” he said in a televised address. “Do not panic because […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The emergence in Britain and South Africa of two new variants of Sars-CoV-2, which are potentially far more infectious versions of the virus, has prompted widespread concern. Here is what we know — and what we don’t — about the mutations. – What are they? All viruses mutate when they replicate in order to adapt to their environment. Scientists have tracked multiple mutations of […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Dozens of people being treated for Covid-19 at a Florida hospital last summer became additionally infected with a mysterious, often deadly fungus called Candida auris, a US government study said Friday. The multidrug-resistant yeast was first identified in Japan in 2009 and has been a top priority for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent years because of its increasing global spread. C. auris is associated with […]
BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — The Australian city of Brisbane has called a snap three-day lockdown after a worker at a quarantine hotel contracted the highly infectious UK strain of Covid-19. From Friday evening, more than two million residents in the Greater Brisbane area would have to stay at home, authorities said. “If we are going to stop the spread of this infectious strain, this UK strain, we must act immediately,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Abu Bakar Bashir, a radical cleric linked to the deadly Bali bombings, was freed from a prison near the Indonesian capital Jakarta early Friday, prison authorities said. “He was handed over to his family and a team of lawyers who came to pick him up at the penitentiary,” national prisons spokeswoman Rika Aprianti said in a statement. Bashir, 82, had completed his jail term for helping fund militant training in conservative […]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll passed 200,000 Thursday amid a surging second wave, with a record number of new cases and the second-highest number of daily deaths since the pandemic began. Highlighting the long road still ahead to bring the pandemic under control, the South American country recorded 87,843 cases and 1,524 deaths in 24 hours, bringing its total death toll to 200,498 — the second-highest in the world, after […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain’s total number of coronavirus infections surged past two million on Thursday as cases jumped following the Christmas holidays, government figures showed on Thursday. The milestone came as the health ministry announced another 42,360 new cases over the past 48 hours, taking the overall figure to 2,024,904. But seroprevalence studies, that test people using a blood serum sample, suggest the figure is far higher. “The total number of confirmed cases… already […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The world’s poorest countries can expect to start receiving their first Covid-19 vaccine doses between the end of January and mid-February, the World Health Organization said Thursday. Vaccination is already under way in some of the world’s wealthiest nations, including the United States, Britain, European Union countries and Canada. Covax, the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort, has struck agreements to secure two billion doses — and the […]
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine CoronaVac showed at least 78-percent effectiveness in final-stage clinical trials in Brazil, officials announced Thursday, saying they would apply for emergency approval from the Brazilian regulatory agency to begin a vaccination campaign. “This is a historic day, a day of hope,” Sao Paulo state Governor Joao Doria told a news conference announcing the results. He said his state’s vaccination campaign would begin on January 25, though that […]
