Health

The United Kingdom has added the loss of smell and taste to its official list of COVID-19 symptoms including fever and new continuous cough - a step that it hopes could help pick up more cases of the novel coronavirus.

Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed promise in a small early-stage trial, with the vaccine producing virus-neutralizing antibodies similar to that found in recovered patients, sending shares soaring 25%.

British pub operators have asked for social distancing rules to be halved from two metres to one in talks with government on reopening, worried that many will have to close permanently otherwise, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

As Los Angeles begins to emerge from more than two months of coronavirus lockdown, 40-year-old Marisa Sullivan will have surgery this week to remove a malignant tumor from her left breast.

The head of the World Health Organization said on Monday an independent evaluation of the global coronavirus response would be launched as soon as possible, and China backed such a review.

More Swedes died in April than in any one month since 1993, figures from the Statistics Office showed on Monday, as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pushed the death toll higher.

China's president called on Monday for an independent review of the global response to the coronavirus pandemic under the World Health Organization once the virus is under control, and defended Beijing's own handling of the pandemic.

China supports a comprehensive review of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic led by the World Health Organization (WHO) after the virus that causes the disease is brought under control, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Russia's defence ministry is setting up a mobile field hospital at the largest Siberian mine of the country's top gold producer, Polyus, to treat miners who contract the new coronavirus, the company said on Monday.

Teva Pharmaceutical said on Monday that China has given the go-ahead to its Austedo treatment for Huntington's disease.

Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced antibodies that could "neutralize" the new coronavirus in patients in a small early stage clinical trial, sending its shares up 25%.

GlaxoSmithKline said an injection every other month of its cabotegravir drug was shown to avert an HIV infection more effectively than Gilead's daily Truvada pill, potentially giving its ViiV unit a foothold in HIV prevention.

The city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak in China, conducted 335,887 nucleic acid tests on May 17, the local health authority said on Monday, compared with 222,675 tests a day earlier.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Monday for giving the World Health Organization (WHO) more teeth to combat emerging diseases that threaten global health.

Russia on Monday reported 8,926 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, pushing its nationwide case tally to 290,678.

Switzerland's President opened the World Health Organization's annual assembly in Geneva on Monday, pledging her country's "full support and cooperation" to its leader as it coordinates the global response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A flood of criticism of the Indonesian government's response to the coronavirus pandemic and the behaviour of many Indonesians has appeared on social media under a hashtag that translates as #IndonesiaWhatever.

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

U.S. life science tools company Thermo Fisher on Monday launched its agreed $11.5 billion takeover offer for Qiagen, calling on investors of the German genetic testing specialist to tender their shares.

A resolution pushed by the European Union and Australia calling for a review into the origins and spread of the novel coronavirus has the support of 116 countries at the World Health Assembly, almost enough for it to pass, a document showed.