Latest On Coronavirus

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th February, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 2.436 million, over 110.1 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 20:20 GMT Thursday, the number of cases globally is 110,164,028, including 2,436,173 fatalities.

The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 27,866,972, including 491,724 fatalities.

The CoviVac vaccine, which was developed by Chumakov research center, is expected to be registered on February 20, the official Russian website with COVID-19 data and advice said.

Ten Moscow hospitals will participate in the international clinical trials of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, which begin on Thursday, the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, discussed the prospects of using and jointly producing Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 in the Central Asian country, the Kremlin said.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic personally handed over 2,000 doses of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, to the Montenegrin authorities.

Guinea is negotiating with Russia to obtain 400,000 doses of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, Mohamed Lamine Yansane, an assistant to the country's health minister, said.

Armenia's COVID-19 vaccine task force has approved the use of Russia's Sputnik V, as well as the vaccines by UK company AstraZeneca and US-German duo Pfizer/BioNTech, Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has urged the United States and the European nations to allocate up to 5 percent of their coronavirus vaccine dose reserves to the developing states in Africa, according to his interview with the Financial Times newspaper.

Germany intends to allocate another 1.5 billion Euros ($1.8 billion) to the COVAX vaccine distribution tool in 2021, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the UN Security Council.

Tunisia expects the belated first batch of the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in March, a member of the national vaccine commission told the parliament.

A nationwide coronavirus vaccination campaign in Morocco, which started at the end of January, has covered more than 2 million people, the kingdom's health ministry said.

Venezuelan authorities will study the possibility of involving private businesses in vaccine importation, President Nicolas Maduro told reporters.

The Vietnamese Health Ministry has approved the import of the first shipment of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, which contains 200,400 doses purchased directly from the company, media reported, citing the ministry.

The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) authorized the use and import of the coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and UK-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

Despite the reports about a rising number of COVID-19 cases, Tanzania seems to be shunning coronavirus vaccines and placing its bets on herbal medicine instead.

Earlier in the week, Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima said the ministry had no plans to procure vaccines.

The Vatican plans to take disciplinary measures, up to outright dismissal, against those among its personnel who refuse to receive a coronavirus vaccine, Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, has said in a special decree.

Russia registered 13,447 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, up from 12,828 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,125,598, the coronavirus response center said.

COVID-19 infection rates have fallen by more than two-thirds in England since the third national lockdown was imposed in January, although there are still more people in hospitals than during the peak last April, according to a study by the Imperial College London and the Ipsos Mori polling firm.

The COVID-19 trend of transmission is curving downwards in the "first wave" countries of Africa that have logged the largest tallies since the start of the pandemic, but it is still upward in Zambia, South Sudan, Senegal and Ghana, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director said.

US federal prosecutors launched an inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in state-run nursery homes by the administration of New York governor Andrew Cuomo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the case.

UK Labour Party head Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, has accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government of letting young people down by failing to support hundreds of thousands of people who have been made redundant throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scientists in the United States and other nations tried and failed to find any credible evidence that the novel coronavirus is transmitted by handling food or food packaging, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.

Russia has no samples of Brazilian and South African coronavirus strains as of today, Anna Popova, the head of public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said.

Russia's economy shrunk by 2.4 percent year-on-year in January 2021, according to the Economic Development Ministry's estimate.

Life expectancy in the United States dropped in the first half of 2020 to its lowest level in 15 years amid the coronavirus pandemic, data released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) showed.

A 53 percent majority of Americans expect disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic measures to persist through the first half of next year, an increase from 33 percent who said the same in late December, a new Gallup poll revealed.

Full-time employment at 17 leading US passenger airlines rose by 13,000 from mid-November, mid-December, the US Department of Transportation said.

Six people have been detained in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon over the production of false vaccines against COVID-19, the Ministry of Security and Civilian Protection said.