The European Medicines Agency (EMA) Thursday announced it had approved the use of Pfizer's anti-COVID-19 pill Paxlovid, which has thus become the first oral treatment cleared for use in the European Union. The new drug is a combination of the molecule PF-07321332 and the HIV antiviral Ritonavir.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Wednesday that a 32% increase in COVID-19 cases had been reported in the Americas during the past week, which represented around 8 million new infections.
Brazil's National Council of Secretaries of Health (Conass) Wednesday reported that intensive care units (ICUs) at eight States were full up to over 80% of their capacity with COVID-19 patients and that the situation was likely to worsen in the coming days.
Uruguay's Presidential Secretary Álvaro Delgado Tuesday encouraged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 after the Health Ministry announced 50.08% of the population has already taken a third dose immunizer against the virus.
Argentina's health authorities have decided to stop requiring a negative PCR test on national citizens and residents entering the country as of Jan. 29, it was announced Tuesday. Other lighter measures will also become effective that day.
Globally, the number of new COVID-19 cases increased in the past week (17-23 January 2022) by 5%, while the number of new deaths remained similar to that reported during the previous week. Across the six WHO regions, over 21 million new cases were reported this week, representing the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the beginning of the pandemic.
Wastewater testing provides a relatively economic method whereby countries in Latin America and the Caribbean can improve their detection, diagnosis, control, and monitoring systems for viruses that cause diseases like COVID-19 and its variants. This tool, which complements clinical studies, allows public policy makers to have a comprehensive, sustainable, early warning, and equitable tool to improve public health responses, according to a new World Bank report.
European authorities finally decided to drop the contagion map approach to decide who gets in and who gets out of the bloc and switch to a coordinated mechanism based on each individual's vaccination status against COVID-19, the European Council announced Tuesday.
The conflict involving lorries trying to cross from Argentina into Chile through the Cristo Redentor-Libertadores pass has now escalated to the point of involving some 3,000 trucks stranded in the middle of the Andes, allegedly due to ultra meticulous sanitary requirements on the Chilean part.
According to the latest version of the everchanging press reports, France is now said to be eyeing a change in the immigration rules, which would allow Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic to play at the most emblematic French Open at Roland Garros after being deported from Australia for the first Grand Slam event of the year.