Health

The United Kingdom's death toll from confirmed cases of COVID-19 rose by 351 to 36,393 as of 1600 GMT on May 21, the health ministry said.

African nations should use antibody tests to find out whether the slower spread and lower mortality rate of the new coronavirus on the continent is due to patchy data or a more resilient population, former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Friday.

The United States called on the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday to begin work immediately on investigating the source of the novel coronavirus, as well as its own handling of the response to the pandemic.

The city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak in China, conducted 1,000,729 nucleic acid tests on May 21, the local health authority said on Friday, compared with 887,321 tests a day earlier.

(This May 21 story clarifies that lockdown is entering ninth week, not eighth week)

The new coronavirus is believed to be spreading throughout Yemen where the health care system "has in effect collapsed", the United Nations said on Friday, appealing for urgent funding.

Britain decided to end mass testing and contact tracing of those with or suspected of having COVID-19 in March because a surge in new cases at that time would have been beyond the system's capacity, government advisers said on Friday.

The mortality rate in the Netherlands was lower than average last week, the statistics office said, as deaths in the country from the coronavirus decline.

Oxford University and AstraZeneca plan to recruit around 10,000 adults and children in Britain for trials of an experimental coronavirus vaccine which on Thursday received U.S. backing worth up to $1.2 billion.

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Indonesia reported on Friday 634 new cases of coronavirus infection, taking the total in the Southeast Asian nation to 20,796, according to health ministry official Achmad Yurianto.

Malaysian health authorities on Friday reported 78 new coronavirus cases, raising the cumulative total to 7,137 cases.

The Philippines on Friday recorded 11 additional coronavirus deaths and 163 more infections, the lowest daily increase in cases in nearly two weeks, health ministry said.

German authorities said they closed another abattoir after an outbreak of coronavirus among its workers.

Coronavirus cases in Singapore topped 30,000 on Friday as the city-state reports hundreds of new infections in cramped migrant worker dormitories every day.

China will strengthen its disease control centres and improve the deployment of resources to resolve shortcomings in its health system exposed by the novel coronavirus outbreak, the state planning agency said on Friday.

Russia on Friday reported 150 new fatalities from the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, a record daily rise, taking the country's official nationwide death toll from the virus to 3,249.

China's top leaders took the stage in front of a sea of masked delegates for the opening of parliament on Friday, the culmination of intensive planning at a time when gatherings around the world have been curtailed by the new coronavirus.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 460 to 177,212, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.