The 'terrible' surge of the coronavirus cases in India has severely impacted COVAX's vaccine supply in the second quarter of this year to the extent that there will be a shortfall of 190 million doses by the end of June, according to a joint statement by the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and CEPI.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said international experts were now on the ground in China to understand the outbreak and inform the next steps in the global response.
The cases of infection have been rising rapidly in Europe and other parts of the world, with Italy being the hardest-hit country.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the G North ward of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the civic body had to change its traditional approach of waiting for patients, contact tracing, isolation and home quarantine to begin proactive screening instead.
In an attempt to stem the spread of coronavirus in India, Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday announced a nationwide lockdown for three weeks.
Besides controlling the spread of the virus, a major task of the WHO team along with their Chinese counterparts was to come up with a standard medicine to cure the disease.
The head of the World Health Organisation said on Saturday that the UN health agency would send an international mission to China as it received a response from Beijing.
Eighty-nine deaths were reported on Saturday -- the highest single-day death toll -- and there were 2,656 new confirmed cases of the deadly infection, China's National Health Commission said in its daily report on Sunday.
'Every single case is a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, sister or friend'
'All anecdotal evidence confirms that there has been no noticeable rise in deaths across the country for want of coronavirus tests,' notes Virendra Kapoor.
'Instead of fighting over whatever will be left of the present world, the permanent members of the UN security council should have raised a little finger to arrest the death and devastation around us,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'There is little doubt that China today stands in the dock, charged with misdemeanour with regard to the health and well-being of its own citizens and of the people of the world,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Trump also announced that the US will end special treatment of Hong Kong in response to Chinese imposition of new controls.
An outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness that started in the city of Wuhan in China has put health authorities on high alert around the world. The new coronavirus-named 2019-nCoV-is thought to have originated in the food market of the central China metropolis and has since infected more than 4,000 people worldwide.
A sense of disquiet prevailed in Beijing as officials announced the capital's first death from the deadly virus, a grim reminder that the epidemic has begun to take toll outside Hubei province.
The manufacturing capacity for the influenza vaccines is inadequate for a world of 6.8 billion people, nearly all of whom are susceptible to infection by the new H1N1 virus, a top official of the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organisation is urging people around the world to brace themselves for a second wave of the swine flu pandemic as the heavily populated northern hemisphere edges towards the cooler season when flu thrives. WHO Director General Margaret Chan warned on Friday that there had been instances of second and third waves when pandemics had struck earlier."We cannot say for certain whether the worst is over or the worst is yet to come," Chan said.
'If everybody with flu symptoms approach hospitals, it will create a very difficult situation for our health system.'
The green body's report said three of the world's largest nitrogen oxide air pollution emission hotspots that contribute to formation of PM2.5 and ozone are in India with one in the Delhi-NCR.
The World Health Organisation is reinstating two generic AIDS antiretroviral drugs delisted earlier this year after the Indian manufacturer carried out new studies to confirm that they are as effective as their brand-name counterparts.
WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, however, warned that the world was not yet SARS-free.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday Brazil is doing a good job tackling the Zika virus and ensuring that the Olympic games it will host in August will be safe for athletes and visitors. Chan said Brazil's government is doing all it can to mobilize Brazilian society in fighting the "formidable" Aedes mosquito that transmits the virus that has spread rapidly through the Americas since last year. "I want to reassure you that the government is working very closely with the international Olympic movement, with the local organizing committee, supported by the WHO, to make sure we have a very good work plan to target the mosquito, and to make sure that people who will come here either as visitors or athletes will get the maximum protection they need," Chan said. "I am confident the government can do it," she told reporters after meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has welcomed measures being taken to tackle the mosquito-borne Zika virus and believes the spread of the virus across South America will not adversely affect the Rio de Janeiro Games in August.
With more than one million people affected by the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the World Health Organisation has warned that there is "no early end in sight" to the severe health crisis and called for "extraordinary measures" to stop the transmission of the disease.
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