MOSCOW, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin expects COVID-19 infections to hit new records in the Russian capital either at the end of this week or early next week, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying on Friday. Moscow will reimpose a partial lockdown from Oct. 28, with only essential shops including pharmacies and supermarkets allowed to remain open, as Russia reports rec...

NEW DELHI, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Tens of millions of Indian adults are unlikely to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of 2021, despite ample supplies, due to an unusually large gap between the doses of the most widely-used vaccine and growing complacency as cases fall. The locally-produced AstraZeneca (AZN.L) vaccine which is known as Covishield has a 12 to 16 week gap between doses, ...

KYIV, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Ukraine expects to receive 100,000 to 200,000 doses of vaccines from Pfizer (PFE.N) under the COVAX scheme in February and vaccinate the first 367,000 people against the coronavirus in first stage, Ukrainain Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on Tuesday. Shmygal told the parliament the country also expected to receive 700,000 doses of Sinovac's (SVA.O) COVID vaccine in t...

BRASILIA, March 19 (Reuters) - Almost eight out of 10 Brazilians think the COVID-19 pandemic is out of control in their country and more than half are "very afraid" they will get infected with coronavirus, a new Datafolha poll said on Friday. Those concerns come as President Jair Bolsonaro swaps the health minister for a third time and Brazil becomes the epicenter of the pandemic with more deat...

DUBAI, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Iran urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to lift sanctions which it said were hampering Tehran's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Tehran also said it had approved Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine for domestic use, and that it was trying to buy vaccines from AstraZeneca and other companies. Sanctions reimposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump formal...

LISBON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Portugal will allow students to return to school from next week and nightclubs to reopen on Jan. 14 despite a record surge in COVID-19 cases, with hospital admissions still well below levels seen earlier in the pandemic, the government said on Thursday. "It is evident that the Omicron variant is less severe ... vaccination has been effective against it," Prime Minister...

WARSAW (Reuters) - When the coronavirus pandemic surged across Europe in April and hospitals were desperate for ventilators, Poland's government turned to an unlikely supplier: an arms dealer. Andrzej Izdebski, 69, has helped smuggle rifles and ammunition across borders, worked for Poland's Communist secret services, and claims to have sold dietary supplements to North Korea. Months later, as a...

WARSAW, April 1 (Reuters) - Poland's Mabion (MABP.WA) aims to start production of U.S. firm Novavax's (NVAX.O) coronavirus vaccine for Europe from the third quarter, representatives of the biotechnology company said. Mabion and Novavax last month signed a framework deal on the transfer of COVID-19 vaccine technology to Mabion's plant in central Poland, which was designed to produce a rare disea...

KYIV, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament on Friday approved a bill intended to speed up the approval of COVID-19 vaccines, which also bans the approval of vaccines made in Russia. The government has said it expects to receive 100,000 to 200,000 doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)and Germany's BioNTech <22UAy.DE> under the global COVAX scheme in February. read more No vaccine ha...

CARACAS, April 15 (Reuters) - Venezuela has received a batch of 50,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said on Thursday, as COVID-19 cases spike in the South American nation. Venezuela had previously acquired 250,000 Sputnik V vaccines and 500,000 doses of the shot developed by China's Sinopharm, which so far have been administered to public offi...

GENEVA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has asked six African countries to be alert for possible Ebola infections, as Guinea on Tuesday reported new cases and Democratic Republic of Congo said its new infections were a resurgence of a previous outbreak. Guinea declared an outbreak of the virus on Sunday in the first return of the disease there since the 2013-2016 outbreak, whil...

LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The coronavirus variant first found in the British region of Kent is a concern because it is mutating and so could undermine the protection given by vaccines against developing COVID-19, the head of the UK's genetic surveillance programme said. She also said the British variant was dominant in the country and was likely "to sweep the world, in all probability". The co...

MANILA, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Less than a third of Filipinos are willing to get inoculated against the coronavirus, an opinion poll showed on Thursday, as the government races to secure vaccines to give to as many as 70 million people this year. The survey by Pulse Asia conducted between Nov. 23 and Dec. 2, found that 32% of 2,400 respondents would get a COVID-19 vaccine jab when available, while 4...

RABAT, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Morocco plans to allow the farming, export and domestic sale of cannabis for medical and industrial use, the government said on Thursday, a move it hopes will help impoverished farmers in the Rif mountains amid a growing legal global market for the drug. Past attempts to legalise cannabis farming in Morocco have failed, but the co-ruling PJD party, the largest in parli...

SANTIAGO, March 4 (Reuters) - Latin America and the Caribbean countries in the throes of the coronavirus crisis will only see their problems made worse by festering inequality, poverty and an ailing social safety net, a United Nations agency said on Thursday. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said social unrest was on the rise across the region, a sign that imm...

LAGOS, April 7 (Reuters) - Nigeria has directed its 36 states and federal capital territory to stop giving first doses of AstraZeneca (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccines once they use half their current stock in order to safeguard supply for the second dose, its health minister said. Osagie Ehanire said the directive came amid concerns over when Nigeria would get another shipment of the shots after India...

BRASILIA, Feb 3 (Reuters) - While coronavirus infections are finally decreasing in the United States and Canada after weeks of unrelenting rise, cases and deaths continue to increase in Latin American countries, the Pan American Health Organization said on Wednesday. In Mexico cases are still rising, particularly in states that drew tourism in the holiday season, such as Guerrero, Quintana Roo,...

SINGAPORE, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Some health experts in Singapore are calling for mandatory vaccination against the coronavirus with a growing toll of severe COVID-19 among unvaccinated people as infections surge and with vaccine take-up plateauing at 82% of the population. The government has linked reopening to vaccination targets but it paused the easing of restrictions this month to watch for ...

Jan 12 (Reuters) - The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review. Long COVID "brain fog" shares features with "chemo brain" The "brain fog" reported by some people after COVID-19 shows striking similarities to the condition known as "chemo brain" - the m...

Feb 7 (Reuters) - Novavax Inc (NVAX.O) said on Monday U.S. government funding for its COVID-19 vaccine had been expanded to cover a late-stage study in adolescents with a booster component. Novavax in July 2020 had received $1.6 billion in funding to develop its protein-based vaccine under a government program aimed at accelerating access to coronavirus vaccines and treatments, formerly called ...