Latest On Coronavirus

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th August, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 4.47 million, over 214.3 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 214,349,897, including 4,470,135 fatalities. As many as 5.07 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.

The Russian Health Ministry has registered its fifth homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, EpiVacCorona-N, the State Medicines Registry said.

Argentine scientists have found that the neutralizing power of antibodies produced after inoculation with Russia's Sputnik V vaccine only increases with time, the country's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation said.

Spain's ROVI pharmaceutical firm, which is manufacturing Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, opened an investigation on Thursday to determine how vials of the vaccine sent to Japan were contaminated with foreign particles.

COVID-19 vaccines for children under the age of 12 may be approved this year, if everything went well, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said.

The US authorities are likely to shorten the period for administering a coronavirus vaccine booster by two months, the Wall Street Journal said.

The Brazilian Health Ministry announced it would start delivering the third COVID-19 vaccine dose to people over 70 years old and to those with weak immune systems.

Foreign materials have been discovered in some portions of Moderna coronavirus vaccine doses and the use of some 1.63 million doses made in the same production line has been halted as a precaution measure, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing the Japanese Health Ministry.

A third shot of the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective against the coronavirus and has 97% efficacy against severe symptoms, Israel's Channel 12 reported, citing the health ministry.

Russia registered 19,630 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, up from 19,536 the day before, taking the overall tally to 6,824,540, the federal response center said.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has increased by 30,671 to 20,645,537 within the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.

India has confirmed 46,164 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 32,558,530, the country's ministry of health and family welfare said.

A digital COVID-19 vaccination certificate developed by the European Union provides a model for other nations to facilitate travel and ensure other benefits such as access to entertainment, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said.

The German parliament extended the regime of the "epidemic situation of national significance" on Wednesday, allowing the government to take measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Hundreds of hospital employees staged a rally outside the health ministry in Athens on Thursday to protest compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for certain groups, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

A US-based group of international pediatric cardiac surgeons had to delay a planned working trip to Russia in August due to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the city of Kemerovo, the organization's leader Bill Novick told Sputnik.

The European Commission paid out the first 2.25 billion Euros ($2.6 billion) to Germany from the EU-wide fund allocated to support member states during the coronavirus crisis.