Health

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd could start a clinical trial as early as July for a potential treatment of COVID-19 that is based on antibodies from recovered patients' blood, company executives said on Wednesday.

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG said on Wednesday it was in talks with the UK government to roll out its coronavirus antibody test kits in the country after Public Health England (PHE) found them reliable.

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the World Health Organization said, warning against any attempt to predict how long it would keep circulating and calling for a "massive effort" to counter it.

Abbott Laboratories' speedy coronavirus test, which can deliver results within minutes, could be missing a third to nearly half of positive cases, according to a study from New York University researchers published on Wednesday.

Nearly all 50 U.S. states have begun to allow some businesses to reopen and residents to move more freely, but only 14 states have met the federal government's guidelines for lifting measures aimed at fighting the pandemic, according to a Reuters analysis.

Peru's rate of coronavirus cases is peaking and will begin a slow decline, President Martin Vizcarra said on Wednesday, as the country moves into a "final stage" of lockdown more than two months after the first case was detected in the South American nation.

Public Health England (PHE) has given approval to Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG's coronavirus antibody test kit, The Telegraph reported late on Wednesday, making it the first such kit approved by Britain's public health agency.

France's daily death toll from the new coronavirus dropped on Wednesday to 83 from 348 the day before, bringing the total number of dead there to 27,074 and putting it just behind Spain in terms of overall fatalities from the disease.

The city of Moscow said on Wednesday it had ascribed the deaths of more than 60% of coronavirus patients in April to other causes as it defended what it said was the superior way it and Russia counted the number of people killed by the novel virus.

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 1,364,061 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 21,467 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,426 to 82,246.

At least 15 states are investigating cases of a rare inflammatory syndrome impacting children that is believed to be linked to the novel coronavirus, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday.

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

On a doorstep in the suburbs of north London, three-year-old Ayse picked up a tissue to wipe away her grandmother's tears - tears for one more victim of the virus.

Campaigners for the welfare of elderly people and their relatives are calling on the UK government to be more transparent after authorities declined to disclose the number of COVID-19 deaths in individual care homes.

Preliminary results from a nationwide coronavirus antibody study show that about 5% of the overall Spanish population has been affected, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday, adding that results varied widely from region to region.

Israel gave approval on Wednesday for exports of medical cannabis, paving the way for sales abroad that the government expects to produce hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

The world has a "long, long way to go" to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, despite tentative steps in many countries to begin restarting normal life, the World Health Organization's top emergencies expert warned on Wednesday.

Communist-run Cuba, laboring under a six-decade U.S. embargo, is betting a biotech sector begun by late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro can give the Caribbean island an edge in a global race to find effective treatments for the new coronavirus.

Love led a young Swiss doctor to emigrate to South Africa, his wife's home country. Years later, love for his disabled child brought him back to Switzerland.