Health

Almost all residents of Indonesia’s most populous island of Java have antibodies against COVID-19, owing to a combination of prior infection and vaccination against the virus, a government-commissioned survey showed. The March study of 2,100 people, conducted on Java, home to 150 million people, and Bali, Indonesia’s top tourism destination, revealed 99.2% of people had COVID antibodies, a 6 percentage …

SHANGHAI: China said on Monday that just three people have died from Covid-19 in Shanghai since a gruelling lockdown began last month, despite recording hundreds of thousands of cases of the fast-spreading Omicron variant in the eastern megacity. Authorities said the first deaths from China’s biggest outbreak since the virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago were three people …

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has thrust Britain into a constitutional crisis by breaking the law he set for pandemic restrictions, effectively “shredding the ministerial code”, the country’s leading constitutional expert said on Sunday. Peter Hennessy, a historian and member of the upper house of parliament, said Johnson had become “the great debaser in modern times of decency in public …

Two COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by units of China National Biotec Group (CNBG) to target the Omicron variant were approved for clinical trials as boosters in Hong Kong, the Sinopharm subsidiary said on Saturday. Scientists worldwide are racing to study upgraded injections against Omicron, as data indicated that antibodies elicited by vaccines based on older strains show weaker activity to …

A fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech provided significant added protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death for at least a month in older individuals, according to a study from Israel conducted when the Omicron variant was dominant. The estimated effectiveness of the fourth dose during days 7 to 30 after it was administered compared with …

Patients with COVID-19 may have an increased risk of rare vision-threatening blood clots in the eye for months afterward, new findings suggest. Because SARS-CoV-2 infections increase the risk of blood vessel obstructions at other sites in the body, researchers studied nearly half a million COVID-19 patients to see whether they would develop clots in the veins or arteries of the …

Ferrero on Tuesday asked US consumers to dispose of some Kinder chocolate products not authorized for distribution in the country, warning they could be from the batch recently recalled in Europe due to a potential Salmonella Typhimurium contamination. The confectionary group’s North American division last week recalled Kinder Happy Moments Chocolate Assortment and Kinder Mix Chocolate Treats basket because they …

GENEVA: The WHO chief said on Wednesday that the world was treating humanitarian crises affecting black and white lives unequally, with only a “fraction” of the attention on Ukraine given elsewhere. World Health Organisation’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the emergencies happening in other parts of the world were not being taken as seriously and hoped the international community “comes …

Ferrero on Tuesday asked US consumers to dispose of some Kinder chocolate products not authorized for distribution in the country, warning they could be from the batch recently recalled in Europe due to a potential Salmonella Typhimurium contamination. The confectionary group’s North American division last week recalled Kinder Happy Moments Chocolate Assortment and Kinder Mix Chocolate Treats basket because they …

More than 13 million poultry birds have been culled in France since the end of November, an official at the agriculture ministry told Reuters on Monday, as France’s worst bird-flu crisis grew rapidly. France has recorded a rare upsurge in outbreaks of the highly contagious virus, believed to have been brought to the country by migrating wild birds. Cullings have …