MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 2.808 million, over 128.6 million cases of infection were detected, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from Federal and local authorities, media and other sources.
As of 20:40 GMT Wednesday, the number of cases globally is 128,628,738, including 2,808,907 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 30,447,282, including 551,817 fatalities.
The first batches of Russian coronavirus vaccine Covivac will be available in the first ten days of April, now the drug is under quality control, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.
Belarusian pharmaceutical company Belmedpreparaty will release the first commercial batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus in the middle of April, Belarusian Health Minister Dmitry Pinevich said.
Brazil's Bthek Biotecnologia company has produced a pilot batch of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, which will be now sent to Moscow for certification, the Russian embassy in Brazil said.
Venezuela received a batch of Russia's coronavirus vaccine EpiVacCorona, developed by the Novosibirsk-based Vector Center, for study, Venezuelan Science Minister Gabriela Jimenez said.
A majority of Austrians polled since Monday approve of the government's plans to buy a million doses of the Russian anti-coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, a survey by Vienna-based pollster Research Affairs has found.
The South Korean Ministry of food and Drug Safety has no immediate plans to register Russia's coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, the official Yonhap news agency reported.
Russia has registered the world's first vaccine against COVID-19 for animals, its mass production could be launched in April, Konstantin Savenkov, deputy head of Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, told reporters. Russian vaccine against COVID-19 for animals is already available for orders, Yulia Melano, an adviser to the head of Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, said.
WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) received information from the Chinese coronavirus producers Sinopharm and Sinovac on the efficacy and safety of their drugs for the first time during the latest group meeting in March, Alejandro Cravioto, chair of SAGE, said at a WHO press briefing.
More than 100 residents of the US state of Washington have tested positive for the coronavirus more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated against the virus, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) revealed.
A phase 3 coronavirus vaccine trial of more than 2,200 adolescents aged 12-15 demonstrated nearly 100 percent efficacy and robust immune responses that exceeded results of earlier trials of participants aged 16-25, Pfizer-BioNTech said.
The United States began enrolling volunteers in a clinical trial of a new vaccine developed by Moderna that targets genetic mutations in the coronavirus variant that first emerged in South Africa, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said.
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca plans to fully switch the name for its coronavirus vaccine to Vaxzevria within half a year, the dpa news agency reported, citing the firm.
Germany will make a decision on what coronavirus vaccine will be used to reinoculate people aged under 60 years who received the first AstraZeneca shot in late April, Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
The Spanish Health Ministry is lifting the age restrictions for the coronavirus vaccine produced by AstraZeneca, Cadena Ser radio reported.
Latvia has received a batch of the coronavirus vaccine by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford containing 43,200 doses, the country's health ministry said.
Yemen has received 360,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the first batch, Ali Al-Walidi, a spokesman for the internationally recognized government's health ministry, told Sputnik, adding that the next shipment may be delivered in May.
The government of the Central African Republic has no plan in place to manage the coronavirus vaccination which risks jeopardizing the national campaign despite sizable foreign donations of vaccines, the spokesman for the Union for Central African Renewal party's leader, Anicet-Georges Dologuele, told Sputnik.
Russia registered 8,275 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, down from 8,277 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,545,095, the coronavirus response center said.
The number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase as the most recent data showed a nearly 12 percent growth in seven-day average number of people who tested positive for the virus, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the country was on the brink of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus-related quarantine introduced in 19 French departments will spread to the whole country from April 3 for four weeks, President Emmanuel Macron said, adding that schools and kindergartens across the country will be closed for three weeks.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said that she expected the EU digital vaccine passports, a scheme to boost tourism within the bloc, to kick off no later than June.
Residents in Germany's capital city Berlin are now expected to provide negative COVID-19 test results when visiting non-food shops, hairdresser salons and museums, following the decision of the city's Senate.
A first-instance court in Brussels obligated the Belgian government to lift the coronavirus restrictions within 30 days over "absence of legal basis" for imposing the restrictions, Belgian newspaper LeSoir reported.
A man wielding a chainsaw was apprehended while trying to storm the Slovenian parliament as an act of protest against the COVID-19 lockdown, the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) reported, citing the police.
The Estonian government decided to cancel the special coronavirus-related exceptions for those coming to the country from Lithuania, Latvia and Finland from April 5, the cabinet said in a statement.
Moldovan lawmakers decided to impose a state of emergency over COVID-19 for 60 days, starting from April 1, parliament speaker Zinaida Greceanii said.
The number of Americans abiding by social distancing rules dropped by 9 percentage points to just 38 percent as the rollout of coronavirus vaccines continued across the country, a new Gallup poll showed.
Wisconsin's Supreme Court has struck down Governor Tony Evers' executive order decreeing the compulsory wearing of face masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus with related measures, a ruling stated.
Clinical trial data on Chinese coronavirus vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac meets efficacy standards set by the World Health Organization, Alejandro Cravioto, the UN agency's lead expert on immunization, said.
Beijing had provided to the World Health Organization (WHO) expert mission investigating the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in Wuhan the same data that had been used by Chinese experts, Chinese health official Liang Wannian, who was a co-leader of the joint study with the WHO, said amid international criticism of the WHO study.
The death rate in the United States increased by almost 16 percent during 2020 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, which took 375,000 lives across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in its weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report.
Canada's budget deficit is projected to increase to $289.07 billion in fiscal year 2020-21 amid record spending in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) said.
