The coronavirus’s resurgence is weighing on service providers in Europe and Asia, even as factories continue to report a strengthening recovery from spring’s sharp declines in output. Surveys of purchasing managers in France, Germany and Japan pointed to a decline in activity at businesses that provide services during September, an indication that the global economy … Read more
Russia has struck preliminary agreements to sell its Covid-19 vaccine to more than 10 countries in Asia, South America and the Middle East, a development that could give Moscow valuable economic and political leverage internationally. Russian officials say they have secured preliminary deals for the vaccine to be delivered to countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and … Read more
A group of developing countries, backed by United Nations agencies and activist groups, is pushing to limit patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines being tested by some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies so that inexpensive copies can be produced for poorer nations. South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Pakistan and others argue they won’t be able to … Read more
The Covid-19 pandemic has driven nearly 37 million people into extreme poverty and reversed two decades of progress in vaccinating children against once-common childhood diseases, according to a new report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The number of people living in extreme poverty globally has risen 7.1% so far this year in the … Read more
The U.S. added 41,471 cases of the new coronavirus on Saturday, a decline from a day earlier, while India reported its fourth straight day with more than 90,000 cases. The new U.S. cases are significantly higher than the daily tallies reported earlier in the week and bring the country’s infection total to about 6.49 million, … Read more
A Chinese pharmaceutical company has injected hundreds of thousands of people with experimental Covid-19 vaccines, as its Western counterparts warn against administering mass vaccinations before rigorous scientific studies are complete. China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use … Read more
CUAUTITLÁN, Mexico—Mexico is running out of death certificates due to the high death toll brought by the coronavirus pandemic and federal bureaucratic snafus, authorities say, delaying burials. The higher-than-normal deaths have caused a shortage of certificates in working-class communities of the country’s most populated state, the State of Mexico, as well as in Mexico City … Read more
MOSCOW—In April, as Covid-19 cases surged across Russia, President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of the country’s top scientists and health officials over video link to deliver an urgent directive: Do whatever you need to create a national vaccine as soon as possible. Four weeks later, Alexander Gintsburg, director of the state-run Gamaleya Institute for … Read more
Developing nations are at risk of being left far short of the Covid-19 vaccine supplies they need as richer countries secure billions of doses even before the drugs pass final clinical trials, according to health experts. The U.S., the European Union, Japan and the U.K. have agreed to purchase at least 3.7 billion doses from … Read more
A Chinese pharmaceutical maker is in talks with several countries to get emergency approval to use an experimental Covid-19 vaccine, developed with the Chinese military, before the completion of large-scale safety and effectiveness trials, according to a senior executive at the company. Early distribution by CanSino Biologics Inc. would give the company a head start … Read more