Health | WPN World People News

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted authorities in Australia to ban people from witnessing in person one of the world’s most iconic New Year’s celebrations.

Several European Union countries began vaccinating against COVID-19 Sunday.

France on Saturday received its first batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which were delivered to the Paris hospital pharmacy network.

South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia recorded the highest daily increase in coronavirus cases Friday as a third wave of COVID-19 hit the countries.

About two-thirds of maternal deaths, newborn deaths and stillbirths could be prevented by 2035 if the current level of care by professional midwives educated and regulated to international standards was scaled up to provide universal access, finds a new study led by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), WHO, and the International Confederation of Midwives published on Dec.3.

Mina, 5, happily carries her box of winter clothes. Mina received the box through UNICEF's winterization programme,which supports displaced communities with warm winter clothing.

As world leaders gather virtually at the Special Session of the General Assembly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, new data published on Dec.3 finds that leaving low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) without access to vaccines amid the COVID-19 pandemic will cause significant economic damage that puts decades of economic progress at risk – for both LLMICs and advanced economies alike.

The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is “Global solidarity, resilient services”. At the 2016 UN High-level Meeting on ending AIDS, member states committed to a 75% reduction of TB deaths among people living with HIV by 2020, compared with 2010. Estimates for 2019 suggest that there has been some notable progress with a 63% reduction; however, the target for 2020 is unlikely to be reached, particularly in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Britain has given emergency approval to a new COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, becoming the world's first western nation ready to begin mass inoculations against a disease that has sickened nearly 64 million people worldwide, including more than 1.4 million deaths.