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WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate from American biotech company Novavax have begun in the United States and Mexico, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced Monday. A similar Phase 3 trial for the same vaccine, called NVX-CoV2373, is also under way in the United Kingdom, where about 15,000 volunteers have been recruited. In the US and Mexico, the new trials will […]
AMMAN, Jordan (AFP) — Jordan has ordered one million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech novel coronavirus vaccine, with the first shipment expected at the end of January or early February, the health minister said Monday. Jordan has recorded 289,748 cases of the Covid-19 disease, including 3,778 deaths, and the numbers continue to rise daily. “Jordan will receive one million vaccines from Pfizer-BionNTech in instalments from January or early February,” said Health Minister Nazir Obeidat in remarks […]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Saudi Arabia has extended its suspension of commercial passenger flights by at least one week and possibly two amid concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus. Saudi Arabi will however allow flights in “exceptional cases”, an interior ministry official said according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Sunday. Foreigners will be allowed to depart the kingdom and cargo movement will be permitted, it added. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Plans to let thousands of frontline workers ring in the new year around Sydney Harbour were ditched Monday as authorities work to suppress a growing cluster of virus cases in Australia’s most populous city. Ordinarily, hundreds of thousands of eager partiers flock to vantage points for the midnight fireworks launched from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Although allowing the usual hordes of revellers had been ruled out this year, officials had plans […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States surpassed 19 million coronavirus cases Sunday, figures from Johns Hopkins University showed, adding one million new cases in less than a week. The US recorded 165,151 new cases in 24 hours at 8:30 pm (0130 GMT Monday), the Baltimore-based institution said, bringing the overall total to 19,107,675 cases. The grim new milestone comes just six days after the US crossed the 18 million case threshold. The US […]
BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — A 101-year-old woman in an elderly care home became the first person in Germany to be inoculated against coronavirus on Saturday, a day before the official vaccination campaign was scheduled to get under way in both Germany and the EU. Edith Kwoizalla was one of around 40 residents and 10 staff in a care home in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt to receive a jab of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the home’s […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The coronavirus crisis will not be the last pandemic, and attempts to improve human health are “doomed” without tackling climate change and animal welfare, the World Health Organization’s chief said. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also condemned the “dangerously short-sighted” cycle of throwing cash at outbreaks but doing nothing to prepare for the next one, in a video message marking Sunday’s first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness. The WHO director-general […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — A 96-year-old living in a care home in central Spain became the first person in the country to be vaccinated against Covid-19 on Sunday, in an event broadcast by national television. She felt “nothing” from the shot, Araceli Rosario Hidalgo Sanchez said with a smile after being injected. With her short white hair, the pensioner living in the Los Olmos retirement home in Guadalajara got up slowly after pulling on her […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam on Sunday reported economic growth of 2.91 percent in 2020, the slowest rate in more than 30 years as the country battled the coronavirus pandemic. The communist state has long been among Asia’s fastest-growing economies, and the 2020 figure marked a sharp fall from last year’s GDP growth of seven percent. But Vietnam’s performance looks rosy in the context of a global recession triggered by the pandemic, and officials hailed […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Top US government scientist Anthony Fauci warned Sunday the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come, driving the country to a “critical point” as holiday travel spreads the coronavirus. “I share the concern of President-elect (Joe) Biden that as we get into the next few weeks, it might actually get worse,” the infectious disease specialist told CNN. Biden cautioned on Wednesday that the nation’s “darkest days are ahead […]
AMMAN, Jordan (AFP) — Jordan on Sunday confirmed two cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant in a man and his wife who had arrived from Britain. Health Minister Nazir Obeidat said the Jordanian couple traveled to the kingdom on December 19 and were found to be infected with the new strain of the virus after being tested and isolated. The couple were still in quarantine and being monitored by medical experts according to virus […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — South Africa has become the first African nation to record one million coronavirus cases, according to new data published by the country’s health ministry on Sunday. Currently suffering a second wave of infections, of which the majority are a new variant of the coronavirus, South Africa is the hardest hit country on the African continent, with 1,004,413 infections and 26,735 deaths, the data showed. As of 1900 GMT, a total […]
