At present, the United States is the most affected country, with around 33 million cases and a death toll in excess of 587,000.
Next comes India, which has been showing a major spike in death rates, with 25 million infected and over 278,000 deaths. Brazil is third, as it has confirmed over 15.7 million cases and around 439,000 fatalities from the pandemic.
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has increased by 79,219 to 15,812,055 within the past 24 hours, the national Ministry of Health said on late Wednesday.
According to the ministry, the death toll has risen by 2,641 to 441,691 people within the same period of time.
More than 14.3 million patients have recovered since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed more than 75,000 new coronavirus cases, with 2,513 fatalities.
Brazil comes second in terms of the death toll following the United States with more than 587,000 fatalities, and third in terms of the number of confirmed cases after the US and India.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US authorities impounded more than 4,000 counterfeit designer facemasks from China in a shipment bound for Puerto Rico, the Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency said on Thursday.
"Officers found 4,550 counterfeit medical face masks from fashion designers such as Dior (1,150), Louis Vuitton (1,100), Gucci (1,400), Burberry (400), and Fendi (500). The face masks were reviewed by an import specialist who determined the items were counterfeit," a CPB press release said.
Customs inspectors in the state of Ohio intercepted the shipment bound for Puerto Rico. If the items were real, retail prices would have totaled more than $1.36 million, the release said.
Officials seized more than 12.7 million counterfeit face masks, nearly 180,000 coronavirus test kits not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), more than 38,000 FDA-prohibited chloroquine tablets and thousands of other illicit and potentially unsafe medical and sanitary products in 2020, the release added.
Most of the products originated in China, according to the release.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Emergent BioSolutions, a company that received a $628 million government contract to assist in the production of COVID-19 vaccines, will be taking corrective action following the contamination and subsequent destruction of 15 million doses, CEO Robert G. Kramer told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Wednesday.
The company is currently under investigation by House officials after failing to provide a single usable vaccine to the public yet, primarily because of the contaminated batch made in their Bayview facility. Kramer stressed, however, that the company does have 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine currently awaiting FDA approval.
“We have implemented an array of corrective steps. Critically, we’ve removed the AstraZeneca vaccine candidate from Bayview, which is now dedicated only to the J&J vaccine,” Kramer said.
During the same hearing, Kramer and other company executives came under fire for allegations of insider trading, general incompetence, and questions about whether they fairly received the government contract, considering the company’s links to Dr. Robert Kadlec, who worked with the company prior to his role as an advisor in the Trump administration.
"Over the past day, 7,920 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 84 Russian regions, including 1,208 cases (15.3 percent) without clinical symptoms", the federal response centre said, adding that the rate of increase fell to 0.16 percent.
Mumbai plans to vaccinate its entire population in 60 days. The municipality has received bids to import 10 million Sputnik vaccine doses and expects more proposals as authorities attempt an ambitious plan to vaccinate every resident of the world’s second-most densely packed city within two months.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Pharmacists in Japan may be allowed to administer coronavirus vaccines as part of the government's measures to accelerate the country's slow immunization campaign, media reported, citing Taro Kono, the minister in charge of vaccinations.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, the minister said that the government would consider the option after establishing whether the addition of dentists would be enough to mitigate the dearth of medical staff who administer COVID-19 shots, the Kyodo news agency reported.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A study conducted by Oxford university found that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine works best as a third dose for patients by boosting a vaccinee's antibodies to the virus, Financial Times reported.
"It’s a little bit surprising because they keep over-focusing on the carrier virus that you get immune responses to. This data shows you need to stop worrying about that", a person familiar with the study told Financial Times.
