Health

Australia ordered its first school closure on Friday after a 16-year-old pupil tested positive for the coronavirus, as the country's prime minister warned the public bill for treating infected patients could top A$1 billion ($661 million).

Airlines have been suspending flights or modifying services in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The outbreak is getting ever closer to the nerve centers of the world's financial system. HSBC bank has sent more than 100 staff in London home after a worker tested positive for the coronavirus, the first known case at a major company in Europe's main financial hub.

A growing number of countries around the world have been evacuating or planning to evacuate diplomatic staff and citizens from areas hit by the new coronavirus.

A person in New Zealand confirmed to have been infected was revealed on Friday to have attended a rock concert packed with thousands of other people.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed and sent to President Donald Trump an $8.3 billion funding bill to help state and local governments combat the spreading coronavirus, as public health experts outlined efforts to rapidly accelerate testing for the disease.

South Korea strongly protested on Friday Japan's decision to impose a two-week quarantine for visitors from South Korea, calling it "unreasonable, excessive and extremely regrettable".

Pfizer Inc is considering a collaboration with German drugmaker BioNTech SE to develop vaccines for the coronavirus using BioNTech's mRNA-based drug development platform, Pfizer's R&D head told Reuters on Thursday.

Coronavirus test kits were delivered at sea on Thursday to an ocean liner barred from returning to port in San Francisco after at least 35 people developed flu-like symptoms aboard the vessel, which has been linked to two other confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The death toll from coronavirus in the United States rose to 12 on Thursday with the latest fatality recorded in King County, Washington, and 53 new cases broke out across the country, striking for the first time in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and San Francisco.

Maryland's public health laboratory has confirmed three coronavirus cases, Governor Larry Hogan said in a statement on Thursday.

The northwestern Chinese province of Gansu reported 11 new confirmed coronavirus patients, all of whom entered China on commercial flights from Iran, according to state media.

Victorian Britain took Florence Nightingale into its heart as the "Lady with the Lamp" who tended wounded soldiers, but a new exhibition shows her as a tough pioneer whose principles on hygiene underpin nursing today as the world battles coronavirus.

Australia ordered its first school closure on Friday after a 16-year-old pupil tested positive for the coronavirus, as authorities struggle to contain the outbreak in the country.

A member of France's National Assembly has been hospitalized in intensive care after contracting coronavirus, the lower house of parliament said in a statement on Thursday.

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus rose to 12 on Thursday when King County, Washington reported the latest fatality.

(Reuters Health) - Children with type 1 diabetes who grow up in families that are close and affectionate are more likely to flourish as adults, a new study suggests.

Diagnostics company Laboratory Corp of America Holdings said on Thursday it will make its coronavirus test available for ordering by healthcare providers from 6 p.m. ET, as the U.S. government ramps up efforts to increase diagnostic capabilities.

U.S. military laboratories have started receiving their own testing kits to determine whether American troops have the new coronavirus, officials said, after relying on outside testing in the roughly two months since China reported the first cases.

Brazil has confirmed eight cases of the new coronavirus as of Thursday, including the first instances of likely local transmission, as the infectious disease spreads up the coast to tourist hotspot Rio de Janeiro and neighboring Espirito Santo state, the Health Ministry said.