Health News

Fifty-nine migrants in Panamanian migration centers have tested positive for the coronavirus, a health official said, as thousands of migrants in the Central American nation wait to advance on their journey north.

The University of Alabama will require students and staff returning to its three campuses in the coming months to submit online health checks regularly and encourage them to download its contact tracing app, officials told Reuters on Thursday.

Brazil registered a record of 1,188 daily coronavirus deaths on Thursday, with more than 20,000 total fatalities from the coronavirus outbreak, the Health Ministry said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a sublingual film from Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc, a unit of Japan-based Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma , for the treatment of "off" episodes in patients with Parkinson's disease, the company said.

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-running advocate of malaria drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19, said on Thursday he knew there was no proof it works, but said there are cases in which it appears to have been successful.

Abbott Laboratories on Thursday said an analysis of data from an ongoing study of its ID NOW rapid test, which is used in the White House and elsewhere to spot COVID-19, shows it is highly accurate when compared with industry-standard tests.

U.S. doctors and others in the scientific community are calling for the release of data that convinced health regulators to authorize emergency use of Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir to treat COVID-19, so they can direct limited supplies on the right patients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday identified 27 coronavirus antibody tests that should no longer be sold in the United States, following up on new regulations meant to weed out dubious tests and players that had entered the country under loose rules set in March.

A quarter of Americans have little or no interest in taking a coronavirus vaccine, a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday found, with some voicing concern that the record pace at which vaccine candidates are being developed could compromise safety.

Argentina, which has enforced one of the world's toughest travel bans against the coronavirus, plans to help charter a private flight to bring in rabbis from Israel to certify meat at the country's packing plants for kosher markets around the world.

Daily new hospitalizations across New York state for the novel coronavirus are below rates seen prior to its March lockdown, further evidence the state hit hardest by the pandemic has turned the corner, New York Governor Andrew said on Thursday.

Spain's daily death toll from the coronavirus fell below 50 on Thursday for the first time since a lockdown was imposed in mid-March, but the figure excludes deaths in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it has removed 27 makers of coronavirus antibody tests from its list of vendors who have notified the agency that they were selling a test and plan to apply for emergency use authorization.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday he was confident that a COVID-19 track and trace system would be operating by June 1, allowing lockdown rules to be eased without risking a spike in infections.

The United Nations rejected on Thursday an accusation by the United States that the world body was using the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to promote access to abortion through its humanitarian response to the deadly global outbreak.

The growth rate of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in France slowed slightly on Thursday, with health authorities reporting an additional 318 known infections, an increase of 0.2% over 24 hours.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday reported 1,551,095 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 22,860 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,397 to 93,061.

Britain said on Thursday it had agreed to acquire over 10 million coronavirus antibody tests from Roche and Abbott which would be rolled out to health and care workers from next week.

Britain's health minister said the health service's COVID-19 smartphone app was working on the Isle of Wight, where it is being trialled, and the country's test and trace operation would be ready to launch on June 1 when the lockdown is further eased.

In a sign that the coronavirus will one day be history, the Czech National Museum is opening an exhibition of face masks worn to protect against the infection.