Health
Latest stories
China expands lockdowns as COVID-19 cases hit daily record

Pandemic lockdowns are expanding across China, including in a city where factory workers clashed this week with police, as the number of COVID-19 cases hits a daily record.

Residents of eight districts of Zhengzhou, home to 6.6 million people, were told to stay home for five days beginning Thursday except to buy food or get medical treatment. Daily mass testing was ordered in what the city government called a "war of annihilation" against the virus.

W140 Full Story
China's Guangzhou locks down millions in 'zero-COVID' fight

The southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou locked down its largest district Monday as it tries to tamp down a major COVID-19 outbreak, suspending public transit and requiring residents to present a negative test if they want to leave their homes.

The outbreak is testing China's attempt to bring a more targeted approach to its zero-COVID policies while facing multiple outbreaks driven by fast-spreading omicron variants. China is the only major country in the world still trying to curb virus transmissions through strict lockdown measures and mass testing.

W140 Full Story
MSF Lebanon starts cholera vaccination amid threat of full-blown spread

Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is contributing to the national vaccination campaign against cholera launched by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health’s by vaccinating people in Arsal, Akkar, Tripoli and Baalbek-Hermel in the north and northeast of Lebanon where most cholera cases are registered in the country, a statement said.

“600,000 cholera vaccines received by Lebanon, as first phase procurement, are to be administered in coordination with various international and local actors,” MSF said in a statement.

W140 Full Story
G20 ministers launch billion-dollar pandemic fund

G20 health and finance ministers launched a $1.4-billion fund Sunday to tackle the next global pandemic ahead of the bloc's leaders gathering for a summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali but the host's president said it was not enough.

W140 Full Story
EU watchdog backs Sanofi Covid booster jab

The EU's medicines watchdog on Thursday backed a Covid booster vaccine by French drug maker Sanofi after saying it had given positive results against the Omicron variant in clinical trials.

W140 Full Story
Free prostate cancer early detection campaign begins at St. George Hospital

A preventative campaign for prostate cancer early detection kicked off Tuesday at the Saint George Hospital University Medical Center.

The campaign includes free medical checkups and PSA tests for men aged 55 to 70 years throughout the month of October, from Monday to Friday and from 10am to 2:30pm at the hospital's primacy care center.

W140 Full Story
EU supports Lebanon's cholera preparedness and response

In response to the cholera outbreak in Lebanon, the EU is allocating €800,000 towards community-based water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in areas with a concentration of cholera cases, the EU Delegation to Lebanon said.

"Ongoing EU humanitarian programs are also redirecting efforts to address this new emergency," the Delegation added in a statement.

W140 Full Story
HRW says Syria cholera outbreak worsened by regime, Turkey

Human Rights Watch Monday accused the government in Damascus and Turkey of exacerbating Syria's deadly cholera outbreak by restricting aid and water-flow to the country's Kurdish-held northeast.

W140 Full Story
Apple says iPhone supplies hurt by anti-virus curbs in China

Apple Inc. is warning customers they'll have to wait longer to get its latest iPhone models after anti-virus restrictions were imposed on a contractor's factory in central China.

The company announcement Sunday gave no details but said the factory operated by Foxconn in the central city of Zhengzhou is "operating at significantly reduced capacity."

W140 Full Story
'No choice' but cholera water for Lebanon's poor

Marwa Khaled's teenage son was hospitalized with cholera after drinking polluted water in Lebanon's impoverished north -- yet she still buys the same contaminated water, the only kind she can afford.

W140 Full Story