schema:articleBody
| - Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launches a plan to get 500 million people vaccinated, saying that leaving the world's poorest exposed to the virus could backfire spectacularly. The first batch of Russia's Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine arrives in Iran, the Middle East country hardest hit by the pandemic, whose supreme leader has ruled out using jabs made by Western countries. The Palestinian Authority also receives 10,000 doses of the vaccine in the West Bank. The head of a World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, says it will "follow facts" and not "start following and chasing ghosts". Peter Ben Embarek was speaking after the investigators visited the Wuhan lab which Donald Trump controversially claimed might have been the source of the virus. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen warns that more production and supply problems lie ahead as the EU seeks to boost its sluggish Covid vaccination campaign. Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway become the latest European countries to limit AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine to people aged under 65, despite the EU approving it for all ages. French President Emmanuel Macron warns about the lack of information about China's coronavirus vaccines, saying they might even encourage the development of variants if they are not effective. Austria's government says the highly transmissible South African coronavirus variant has been detected in 75 tests in the western Tyrol region, where there is an "acute and serious" situation. Portugal, hit by the world's highest per capita Covid-19 death rates and infections in recent weeks, is now seeing a decline in cases, the health minister Marta Temido says, the country recording 225 new deaths on Thursday, its lowest daily toll for two weeks. The coronavirus has killed more than 2,269,346 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally based on official sources. The countries with the most deaths are the US at 450,805, followed by Brazil with 227,563 and Mexico with 161,240. The global death toll, calculated from official daily figures published by national health authorities, is an underestimate and does not include later revisions by statistics agencies. burs-nrh-jmy/pvh
|