MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2020) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 761,000, over 21 million cases of infection were detected, and over 13 million of those patients were cured, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from Federal and local authorities, media and other sources.
As of 21:00 GMT Friday, the number of cases globally is 21,010,700, including 761,260 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 5,280,315, including 167,828 fatalities and 1,774,648 recoveries.
The European Commission announced on Friday reaching its first agreement with the multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on purchasing a potential vaccine against the coronavirus and also distributing it to countries in need.
The UK government has secured deals with another two pharmaceutical firms for a total of 90 million doses of candidate vaccines against COVID-19, taking the country's potential vaccine stockpile to 340 million doses.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he hopes Russia's vaccine against the novel coronavirus works, but added that he did not have much information about it.
The Russian Health Ministry has not sent any official proposal regarding assistance in COVID-19 vaccine development to the United States, Alexey Kuznetsov, an aide to the Russian health minister, told Sputnik.
Russia will release the information about pre-clinical and clinical trials of the new vaccine against the coronavirus in the coming days, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.
Moldovan President Igor Dodon said that Chisinau had officially addressed Moscow with a request to supply the country with the Russian coronavirus vaccine once it is approved for export.
Thailand will carefully watch Russia's coronavirus vaccine rollout before deciding whether to recommend it for local use, Nakorn Premsri, the head of the National Vaccine Institute, said.
Tajikistan's Ministry of Health and Social Protection has sent requests to the Russian health authorities to provide a vaccine against COVID-19, Tajik Health Minister Jamoliddin Abdullozoda told Sputnik.
Indian companies have asked the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to provide the technical details of the Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the world's first registered vaccine against COVID-19, which could allow for production to take place in India for export and domestic use, sources at the Indian Embassy in Moscow told Sputnik.
Indian Ambassador to Russia Venkatesh Varma told Sputnik that discussions with the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, on the topic of bilateral cooperation on a potential vaccine against COVID-19 had been productive, and that he hoped for a positive outcome.
The novel coronavirus pandemic will probably claim 200,000 lives in the United States by September 5, according to a new projection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
German researchers have found that almost four times more people had contracted COVID-19 in the town of Kupferzell in Baden-Wurttemberg than it was registered, Lars Schaade, the vice president of the Robert Koch Institute said on Friday, adding that the antibodies were detected in almost 8 percent of the residents, which was not enough to prevent a second wave of the epidemic in the region.
Long-term exposure to air pollution makes people more susceptible to respiratory conditions, becoming one of many comorbidity factors in COVID-19 patients, Dr Jean-Luc Gala, an infectious diseases specialist and professor at the UCLouvain University medical school, told Sputnik on the heels of the recent study about a link between dirty air and coronavirus mortality.
The COVID-19 case mortality rate in Moscow since the beginning of the outbreak comes in at about 4.9 percent when counting cases where the disease was the main or a contributing cause of death, the health department of the Russian capital said.
The United States has extended the so-called non-essential travel restrictions to Mexico and Canada through September 21 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said.
The UK authorities have extended coronavirus-related restrictions regarding social gatherings in the North West, West Yorkshire, East Lancashire and Leicester over a spike in the number of infections in the areas, the UK Department of Health and Social Care said.
Thousands of UK citizens who are currently in France and the Netherlands are rushing to get back to their homeland before a mandatory 14-day quarantine order for returnees enters into force at 04:00 local time [03:00 GMT] on Saturday.
Paris and the Bouches-du-Rhone department in southeastern France return to the "red zone" status after a surge in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, according to the government's decree in the Official Gazette, published and effective Friday.
Spain is introducing new restrictions, including the closure of nightclubs and limits on smoking outdoors, in a bid to curb the coronavirus pandemic amid a resurgence in infections, Health Minister Salvador Illa said.
Argentina has extended its lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic through August 30 with a number of regions reintroducing tough restrictions, President Alberto Fernandez said.
The Philippine Department of Agriculture has banned imports of poultry meat from Brazil after China reported it had detected COVID-19 in samples and packaging of frozen chicken wings from the Latin American country, media reported.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has instructed the government to step up quarantine measures at churches in a bid to curb a surge in COVID-19 cases related to new clusters of infections in the places of worship, presidential spokesman Kang Min-seok said.
The Hong Kong economy can contract by 6-8 percent in 2020 over uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic and related lockdown measures, as well as external shocks, the special administrative region's government said in a downgraded GDP outlook.
The Belgian authorities plan to impose sanctions on laboratories that conduct coronavirus testing if they are not fast enough in providing the test results, so that the tracking of possible virus carriers can prevent the spread of the disease, local media reported.
