WHO

Since May, nearly 90 countries have reported more than 31,000 cases of monkeypox

Two patients in the West African nation have died recently of the Ebola-like virus, officials say.

Last week, WHO said its emergency committee concluded that the expanding monkeypox outbreak was worrying, but did not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency. Within Africa, WHO said monkeypox has spread to countries where it hasn't previously been seen, including South Africa, Ghana and Morocco. WHO noted that similar to the scramble last year for COVID-19 vaccines, countries with supplies of vaccines to stop monkeypox are not yet sharing them with African countries. WHO's Tieble Traore said that according to detailed data from Ghana, the numbers of monkeypox cases were almost evenly split between men and women. In Africa, monkeypox has mainly been spread to people from infected wild animals like rodents or primates.

Health authorities in Africa say they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak here as an emergency and call on rich countries to share the world’s limited supply of vaccines

Health authorities in Africa say they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak here as an emergency and call on rich countries to share the world's limited supply of vaccines.

The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally fell everywhere except the Middle East and Southeast Asia, according to the World Health Organization.

(Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP, File) (Uncredited)NEW YORK — (AP) — Genetic analysis of recent monkeypox cases suggests there are two distinct strains in the U.S., health officials said Friday, raising the possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time. Many of the U.S. cases were caused by the same strain as recent cases in Europe, but a few samples show a different strain, federal health officials said. “I think it's certainly possible that there could have been monkeypox cases in the United States that went under the radar previously, but not to any great degree,” she told reporters Friday. Many — but not all — of those who contracted the virus had traveled internationally, and health officials in a growing number of countries are investigating. So far, many of the reported cases outside Africa have been in men who have sex with men, but health officials stress that anyone can get monkeypox.

(Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP, File) (Uncredited)NEW YORK — (AP) — Genetic analysis of recent monkeypox cases suggests there are two distinct strains in the U.S., health officials said Friday, raising the possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time. Many of the U.S. cases were caused by the same strain as recent cases in Europe, but a few samples show a different strain, federal health officials said. “I think it's certainly possible that there could have been monkeypox cases in the United States that went under the radar previously, but not to any great degree,” she told reporters Friday. Monkeypox typically begins with a flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes, followed by a rash on the face and body. Many — but not all — of those who contracted the virus had traveled internationally, and health officials in a growing number of countries are investigating.

WHO North Korea FILE - An employee of Pyongyang Dental Hygiene Products Factory disinfects the floor of a dinning room as the state increased measures to stop the spread of illness in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 16, 2022. A top official at the World Health Organization said the U.N. health agency assumes the coronavirus outbreak in North Korea is “getting worse, not better,” despite the secretive country's recent claims that COVID-19 is slowing there. (AP Photo/Cha Song Ho, file) (Cha Song Ho)LONDON — (AP) — A top official at the World Health Organization said the U.N. health agency assumes the coronavirus outbreak in North Korea is “getting worse, not better,” despite the secretive country's recent claims that COVID-19 is slowing there. The North Korean government has said there are about 3.7 million people with fever or suspected COVID-19. He said WHO was working with neighboring countries like China and South Korea to ascertain more about what might be happening in North Korea, saying that the epidemic there could potentially have global implications.

WHO North Korea FILE - An employee of Pyongyang Dental Hygiene Products Factory disinfects the floor of a dinning room as the state increased measures to stop the spread of illness in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 16, 2022. A top official at the World Health Organization said the U.N. health agency assumes the coronavirus outbreak in North Korea is “getting worse, not better,” despite the secretive country's recent claims that COVID-19 is slowing there. (AP Photo/Cha Song Ho, file) (Cha Song Ho)LONDON — (AP) — A top official at the World Health Organization said the U.N. health agency assumes the coronavirus outbreak in North Korea is “getting worse, not better,” despite the secretive country's recent claims that COVID-19 is slowing there. The North Korean government has said there are about 3.7 million people with fever or suspected COVID-19. He said WHO was working with neighboring countries like China and South Korea to ascertain more about what might be happening in North Korea, saying that the epidemic there could potentially have global implications.

Nigeria, meanwhile, recorded its first death from monkeypox this year in a patient with underlying medical conditions, the diseases control agency said Sunday. “The death was reported in a 40-year-old patient who had underlying co-morbidity and was on immunosuppressive medications," the Nigeria CDC said. Nigeria has not had an outbreak of monkeypox since September 2017 but it continues to report sporadic cases. At least 247 have been confirmed in 22 of its 36 states since then with 3.6% fatality rate, the disease control agency said. Nigeria has recorded six confirmed cases of the disease the British citizen left the country.

The outbreaks in Europe and America are not normal but remain containable, health officials say.

As Covid spreads in North Korea, state media urges the use of traditional medicine against the virus.

The pandemic didn't go away, but global attention may be elsewhere.

Case in point: India, which reported 481,000 COVID-19 deaths in 2020 and 2021. The World Health Organization found 4.74 million deaths there either directly or indirectly attributable to the pandemic.

There is mounting evidence that a common adenovirus is linked to these rare cases.

Health experts say South Africa is seeing a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases driven by yet another version of the coronavirus

Virus Outbreak Africa A woman wears a face shield to protect against COVID-19 at a taxi rank in Soweto, South Africa, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. South Africa is seeing a rapid surge of COVID-19 cases from a sub-variant of omicron, say health experts. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell) (Denis Farrell)JOHANNESBURG — (AP) — South Africa is seeing a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases driven by yet another version of the coronavirus, health experts say. South Africa is recording just over 6,000 COVID-19 cases a day, up from a few hundred just a few weeks ago. Experts say BA.4 seems to be more transmissible than both the original omicron variant and an omicron relative known as BA.2.

Health experts say South Africa is seeing a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases driven by yet another version of the coronavirus.

The U.N. health agency says nearly everybody in the world breathes air that doesn’t meet its standards for air quality

The World Health Organization says the number of people killed by the coronavirus surged by more than 40% last week

The World Health Organization said Wednesday it had verified 64 attacks on health-care facilities in Ukraine since the war began.

The World Health Organization says the number of new coronavirus deaths reported worldwide fell by 17% in the last week even as COVID-19 infections rose

The BBC finds no evidence for Russian claims that Ukraine is developing biological weapons with US support.

"Infectious diseases ruthlessly exploit the conditions created by war," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor at the WHO.

The number of new coronavirus cases around the world fell 21% in the last week, marking the third consecutive week COVID-19 cases have dropped

The surge comes weeks after similar ones in the United States, Canada and several countries in Europe, where cases — and covid restrictions — are now falling.

Most European countries banned tobacco ads years ago, but the Swiss are yet to tighten their laws.

The head of the World Health Organization said there is an investigation underway into alleged reports the U.N. health agency’s top official in the Western Pacific engaged in racist, unethical and abusive behavior

The WHO's director-general has said the organization can't achieve its aims without reforming its funding model.

The World Health Organization says there were 21 million new coronavirus cases reported globally last week.

The head of the World Health Organization is warning that conditions remain ideal for more coronavirus variants to emerge and says it’s dangerous to assume omicron is the last one or that “we are in the endgame.”.

The Covid-19 pandemic is at a "critical juncture" as it enters its third year, the WHO's top official said on Monday.

A growing number of governments are offering people a stark choice: Get your coronavirus vaccine or pay up.

The World Health Organization says that coronavirus vaccine boosters should now now be offered to people, starting with the most vulnerable, in a move away from its previous insistence that boosters were unnecessary for healthy adults and an acknowledgment that the vaccine supply is improving globally.

The World Health Organization says the number of new coronavirus cases globally rose by 20% last week to more than 18 million, marking a slowdown in the surge caused by the omicron variant.

The government of Ethiopia has sent a letter to the World Health Organization accusing its Ethiopian director-general of “misconduct” after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country

"As prime minister and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed has a special responsibility to end the conflict and contribute to peace," the Oslo-based committee said in a statement.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prestigious Peace Prize, has issued a very rare admonition to the 2019 winner, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, over the war and humanitarian crisis in his country’s Tigray region.

The World Health Organization says the number of new coronavirus infections in the last week globally jumped by about 55% although the number of deaths remained stable

Schools across the country are struggling with whether to return to remote learning as COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths increase. Many teachers who once pushed for in-person learning are now urging state lawmakers and school districts to offer remote options. CEO of Braintrust Tutors Mara Koffmann joined CBSN's Lana Zak to discuss the impact this has on children.

The WHO cautions that just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising and killing people.

Some investment firms want bonuses withheld for bosses of coronavirus vaccine firms if distribution isn't fairer.

The World Health Organization says a record 9.5 million cases of COVID-19 were tallied around the world over the last week, noting a 71% surge in the weekly count of infections amounting to a “tsunami” as the new omicron variant sweeps worldwide

The WHO has set a target for countries to vaccinate 70% of their populations by mid-2022.

A fire official says there were four smoke detectors in the building but that none appeared to be working.

The organisation ends the year on a positive note but warns about "nationalism and vaccine hoarding".

The warning comes as record cases are once again reported across the US and Europe.

The UN health body's Europe head says another storm is coming, as countries brace for a surge in cases.

The World Health Organization says the number of COVID-19 cases involving omicron is doubling every 1.5 to three days in countries where there is community transmission of the variant and not just people who were infected abroad

The World Health Organization has given emergency approval to a coronavirus vaccine made by U.S.-based Novavax, paving the way for its inclusion into the U.N.-backed program to get such vaccines to poorer countries around the world

Congolese health authorities have declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in the country’s east that had killed at least six people since October

We can learn some things from what's happening in South Africa, but there are also uncertainties.

The World Health Organization says early evidence suggests the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be spreading faster than the highly transmissible delta variant and brings with it less severe disease — although it’s too early to make firm conclusions.

Medicago said it would file the adjuvanted plant-based vaccine for regulatory approval with Health Canada, the FDA and others.

Experts at the World Health Organization have recommended against using blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to treat patients with the illness.

The World Health Organization urges people to be cautious and prepare for the Omicron variant.

The new agreement will better coordinate the global response to a pandemic but it will take years to negotiate.

It urges people who are unwell and the over-60s to delay travel because of the Omicron variant.

Omicron could lead to severe consequences in some regions, the World Health Organization has warned.

The World Health Organization is opening a long-planned special session of member states to discuss ways to strengthen the global fight against pandemics like the coronavirus, just as the worrying new omicron variant has sparked immediate concerns worldwide.

The crowd deaths at a Houston music festival have added to the long list of people who have been crushed at a major event.

COVID-19 vaccinations and masks will be required for all Broadway audience members when theaters reopen in the coming weeks.

Africa is facing a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 infections whose peak will surpass that of earlier waves as the continent’s countries struggle to vaccinate even a small percentage of the population.

A new highly contagious variant of the coronavirus is raising concerns as it becomes the dominant strain in the United Kingdom and continues spreading.

The IOC vice president in charge of the Tokyo Olympics says the games will open in just over two months even if the city and other parts of Japan are under a state of emergency because of rising COVID-19 cases.

The World Health Organization says the coronavirus pandemic is growing.

It also declined to publicly call out countries — particularly China — for mistakes that senior WHO officials grumbled about privately. Only when WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a “pandemic” six weeks later, on March 11, 2020, did most governments take action, experts said. Ad“If WHO’s recommendations are not strong enough, we could see the pandemic go on much longer,” he said. With several licensed vaccines, WHO is now working to ensure that people in the world’s poorest countries receive doses through the COVAX initiative, which is aimed at ensuring poor countries get COVID-19 vaccines. AdIrwin Redlener of Columbia University said WHO should be more aggressive in instructing countries what to do, given the extremely unequal way COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed.

But that knowledge belongs to the large pharmaceutical companies who have produced the first three vaccines authorized by countries including Britain, the European Union and the U.S. — Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. AdThe deal-by-deal approach also means that some poorer countries end up paying more for the same vaccine than richer countries. AstraZeneca said the price of the vaccine will differ depending on local production costs and how much countries order. Pharmaceutical companies say instead of lifting IP restrictions, rich countries should simply give more vaccines to poorer countries through COVAX, the public-private initiative WHO helped create for more equitable vaccine distribution. “People are literally dying because we cannot agree on intellectual property rights,” said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat involved in the WTO discussions.

An employee of the Municipal Health Service GGD administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a health care worker at a coronavirus vaccination facility in Houten, central Netherlands, Friday, Jan. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)GENEVA – World Health Organization experts on Friday issued recommendations that the interval between administration of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus can be extended to up to six weeks. It said an interval of 21 to 28 days between the doses is recommended. The agency also said it also does not recommend COVID-19 vaccination of travelers unless they face high risks or qualify as priority cases. It also cited a lack of evidence about whether vaccination reduces the risk of transmission of the virus to other people.

Scientists say there is reason for concern and more to learn but that the new variants should not cause alarm. Worry has been growing since before Christmas, when Britain’s prime minister said the coronavirus variant seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England. A: New variants have been seen almost since the virus was first detected in China nearly a year ago. Scientists are still working to confirm whether the variant in England spreads more easily, but they are finding some evidence that it does. A: Scientists believe current vaccines will still be effective against the variant, but they are working to confirm that.

Europes second wave of coronavirus infections has struck well before flu season even started. Spain this week declared a state of emergency for Madrid amid increasing tensions between local and national authorities over virus containment measures. “I have to say clearly that the situation is not good," the Czech interior minister, Jan Hamacek, acknowledged this week. “We are in the fall wave without having resolved the summer wave,” she told an online forum this week. Half of Campania’s 100 ICU virus beds are now in use.

BEIJING Two World Health Organization experts will spend the next two days in the Chinese capital to lay the groundwork for a larger mission to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 120 nations called for an investigation into the origins of the virus at the World Health Assembly in May. China has insisted that WHO lead the investigation and for it to wait until the pandemic is brought under control. The last WHO coronavirus-specific mission to China was in February, after which the teams leader, Canadian doctor Bruce Aylward, praised Chinas containment efforts and information-sharing. An Associated Press investigation showed that In January, WHO officials were privately frustrated over the lack of transparency and access in China, according to internal audio recordings.

There is a lot of information coming out each day about the novel coronavirus COVID-19, but amid the pandemic, there are also a lot of myths. The World Health Organization is setting straight some invalid things you might have seen or heard about COVID-19. There are no specific medicines to prevent or treat the COVID-19 virus. COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in hot and humid climates. This specific virus, because it’s so new and different, will need its own vaccine.

Does anyone else feel like we’re in the midst of some pretty unsettling times? Even if you’re trying to keep a level head about where things stand with the coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to turn on the TV or open social media and start to feel pretty overwhelmed, pretty quickly. For some, you can’t go out to eat, you’re now working from home and your kids aren’t even going to school. And with that, we thought we’d provide the following playbook. Yes, there is some science jargon involved here, but we tried to break it down for you in a way that’s easy to read and digestible.