Tag: health

Turkey mayor urges lockdown for Istanbul

by Fulya OZERKAN ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — Istanbul’s opposition mayor on Thursday called for a lockdown in Turkey’s largest city after it reported the country’s highest number of coronavirus cases and criticized the lack of coordination with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey’s government has announced measures to contain the spread of the virus from shutting schools, banning mass prayers, suspending international flights to restricting intercity trips. But Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu’s demand is likely to put […]

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DOH starts distributing 15k sets of PPEs to various hospitals, says 985,000 PPE sets due to arrive April 6-24

  (Eagle News) – The Department of Health said it has started to deliver 15,000 sets of Personel Protection Equipment (PPE) that arrived on Wednesday, April 1, to six of its referral hospitals. This is the first batch of 1 million PPE sets that the government has bought for P1.8 billion. Initially, the following COVID-19 referral hospitals were given their PPEs. These are the East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC), San Lazaro Hospital, Lung Center of […]

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France reports 471 more coronavirus hospital deaths, toll tops 4,500

PARIS, France (AFP) — France reported 471 more deaths in hospital from COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the country’s official toll from the coronavirus epidemic to 4,503. The French figures include only those who died in the hospital and not those who died at home or in old people’s homes. However, top health official, Jerome Salomon told reporters for the first time that an initial count had shown 884 people had died in old people’s homes […]

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Iran parliament speaker tests positive for COVID-19

TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran’s parliament speaker tested positive for COVID-19, state television reported Thursday, becoming the latest official to contract the disease in the hard hit country. Ali Larijani “was tested for coronavirus after showing certain symptoms, and as the result was positive, he is currently in quarantine and undergoing treatment,” the report said. Larijani, 62, is close to the Iranian leadership and president and was re-elected in 2016 for a second term as […]

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Antibody tests key to ending COVID-19 lockdowns

by Paul RICARD PARIS, France (AFP) — It’s the key that opens to door from total lockdown: serologic testing, which will show definitively who has contracted COVID-19 and is in theory safe to return to work. “Everyone’s waiting for serologic testing, the whole world,” said France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran. He said that the global research community was focussing on ways of perfecting the tests, which measure viral antibodies in a person’s blood that signal […]

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First prisoner dies of virus in Italy – watchdog group

ROME, Italy (AFP) — A first prisoner in Italy has died of coronavirus, a prison watchdog group said on Thursday, calling for more early releases of inmates from the country’s overcrowded system. Two prison guards have died of the virus, and 19 inmates out of a total inmate population of 58,000 have tested positive, according to Italy’s justice ministry. “The first prisoner death from COVID-19 confirms all our worries about the tragic consequences of contagion […]

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Coronavirus drives 6.65 million to file for US jobless benefits

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Another 6.65 million US workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, the most ever recorded, as the coronavirus forces businesses to shut down nationwide, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The  number of first-time applications for jobless benefits for the week ended March 28 was double the number registered in the previous week, which was revised up by 24,000 to 3.3 million — the previous record, according to the data. “Nearly […]

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Indonesia frees 18,000 inmates from bursting jails over virus fears

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia has released some 18,000 inmates in a desperate bid to stop coronavirus from rampaging through its notoriously overcrowded prison system, authorities said Thursday. The mass release comes days after the Southeast Asian nation said it would free more than 30,000 inmates to take pressure off prisons and jails beset by unsanitary conditions and long at risk of infectious diseases. The UN has called on countries to release vulnerable inmates, with […]

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Doctors warn of malaria drug scarcity

by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — Limited global stocks of two anti-malarial drugs could wreck plans to use the medicines, currently in clinical trials, to treat COVID-19, doctors cautioned on Thursday. Around the world, countries are expanding access to chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which are used to treat malaria and are known to have anti-viral properties. The medicines have shown early promise against the COVID-19 illness in studies in France and China. CQ, […]

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Spain virus death toll tops 10,000: govt

MADRID, Spain (AFP) — The coronavirus death toll in Spain surged past 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 deaths in 24 hours, with the number of confirmed cases passing the 110,000 marks, the government said. Spain has the world’s second-highest death toll after Italy, with the virus so far claiming 10,003 lives although the rate of new infections and deaths continued its downward trend, the health ministry figures showed. The number of new infections […]

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Spanish jobless claims jump by over 300,000 in March

MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain registered a leap of 302,265 jobless claims in March due to the “extraordinary impact” of the coronavirus pandemic, the labor ministry said Thursday. It is reportedly the biggest monthly increase on record in the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, which has been locked down since March 14 to try to curb the spread of the virus. The pandemic “changed the trend” in unemployment figures for March, after only 2,857 workers filled jobless […]

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Under-fire Johnson says, UK will ‘massively increase testing’

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain would “massively increase testing” amid a growing wave of criticism on Thursday about his government’s failure to provide widespread coronavirus screening. In a video message posted online on Wednesday night from Downing Street, where he has been in self-isolation since announcing on March 27 that he had contracted the virus, Johnson said testing was the “way through”. “We’re also massively increasing testing. As I […]

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