MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 3.064 million, over 144.2 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 20:30 GMT Thursday, the number of cases globally is 144,217,276, including 3,064,345 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 31,903,230, including 569,928 fatalities.
The powder form of the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine has the advantage of better shelf life than other vaccines used in India, the president of the Confederation of Medical Associations in Asia and Oceania (CMAAO), K K Aggarwal, told Sputnik.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are set to conduct a joint visit of facilities where Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V is produced from May 10 through June, a WHO representative told Sputnik.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Egypt's Minapharm have reached an agreement to produce over 40 million doses of Russia's Sputnik V per year, with production set to start in the third quarter of the year, RDIF announced.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry told its diplomatic missions in a dozen foreign countries to collect information on the safety of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine at a request of the national drug regulator.
Turkey will soon start using Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, the country's health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said.
Kazakhstan will start administering its home-made vaccine, QazVac, to inoculate against COVID-19 starting April 26, the government press office said.
The European Commission plans to launch legal proceedings against AstraZeneca because of its failure to deliver pledged coronavirus vaccine doses to EU countries, Politico reported, citing unnamed EU diplomats.
EU member states have agreed on technical specifications for the Digital Green Certificate, which certifies a person's COVID-19 vaccination status and facilitates movement across the bloc, ahead of its planned rollout in June, the European Commission said.
Norway has decided to lend its stock of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to neighboring Sweden and Iceland as long as the vaccine is suspended for use over blood-clotting concerns, the Ministry of Health and Care Services said.
The US Department of Defense is using the Moderna coronavirus vaccine instead of the one produced by Johnson & Johnson after an advisory was issued to pause administering the latter, Defense Health Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Place said during a briefing.
Emergent BioSolutions, a US vaccine manufacturer hired to make the coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) stopped production after a multi-day inspection found unsanitary conditions and other deficiencies, the food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.
US pharmaceutical company Pfizer has identified fake doses of its vaccine against COVID-19 in Mexico and Poland, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Russia registered 8,996 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, up from 8,271 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,736,121, the coronavirus response center said.
France appears to have descended the peak of the third coronavirus wave, Prime Minister Jean Castex said, adding that vigilance must prevail as COVID-19 variants were still spreading.
A teenager died in Switzerland in late March after testing positive for the coronavirus, in what media say could be the first death in the 10-19 age bracket.
India has registered 314,835 new COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, the health ministry said.
Turkey will implement the three-day nationwide lockdown from the evening of April 22 until the morning of April 26 to prevent increase in coronavirus infections during the national holiday, the Ministry of Interior said.
The Japanese government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the prefectures of Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo from April 25 to May 11 in an effort to curb a spike in COVID-19 cases, national media reported, citing a senior official.
Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has issued a state of emergency decree that envisions a night curfew in 16 provinces due to a new wave of COVID-19.
The US senate has passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act by a vote of 94-1, with Senator Josh Hawley being the lone dissenting vote. The bill describes what it terms COVID-19-related hate crimes as those motivated by the victim's perceived ethnicity and the actual or perceived relationship to the spread of the coronavirus of any person because of that characteristic.
A string of protests in Berlin against a parliamentary vote on a bill that will give the chancellor more powers to toughen coronavirus rules left 29 officers hurt and hundreds of people detained.
