Health News (Reuters)

Proposed changes to requirements that state-run Medicaid programs are given the best drug prices would clear the way for commercial health insurers to enter into "value-based" payment schemes, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said on Wednesday.

Beijing confirmed 21 new COVID-19 cases as of June 17, China's health authority said on Thursday, down from 31 a day earlier.

The first wave of COVID-19 came slowly to San Joaquin County in the heart of California's breadbasket, but the much-feared second surge is roaring through, sickening as many people in the two weeks since Memorial Day as in March and April combined.

Mexico's health ministry reported on Wednesday 4,930 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 770 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 159,793 cases and 19,080 deaths.

Raising black boys in America involves "constant mental anguish," Danielle Pattillo, a special education teacher in New York City and mother to two sons, ages 14 and 22, said.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Panama reached 22,597 on Wednesday, up 635 from the previous day, and deaths climbed by 13 to 470, the health ministry said.

Peru topped 240,000 total cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing hard-hit Italy, government data showed, even as the pace of infections has begun to moderate in the South American nation.

Just days before U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, the biggest event in the country since pandemic restrictions were imposed in March, new coronavirus cases are surging in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and elsewhere.

The Navajo Nation has reimposed 57-hour weekend curfews to protect citizens from a surge in coronavirus cases in neighboring Arizona after the largest Native American reservation managed to flatten its own COVID-19 curve.

Brazil recorded 1,269 additional COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States.

Turkey on Thursday made it compulsory for people to wear face masks when outside in the country's largest cities of Istanbul and Ankara, as well as the northwestern city of Bursa, in a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Roche Holding AG's Actemra did not improve symptoms in patients with early-stage COVID-19 pneumonia, scientists conducting a study of the drug in Italy said on Wednesday, raising questions about the potential of the Swiss drugmakers' rheumatoid arthritis drug to treat the novel coronavirus.

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences said on Wednesday it will soon begin enrollment of pediatric patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 in a late-stage study testing its experimental drug, remdesivir.

Signs of hope are starting to show in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, but it added that countries must continue to work on prevention measures to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

The following is a brief roundup of some 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 number of people who died from coronavirus infection in France rose by 28 to 29,575 on Wednesday, a figure more in line with the current trend after a spike in deaths on Tuesday due to the inclusion of weekly data for nursing homes.

The number of people who died from coronavirus infection in France rose by 28 to 29,575 on Wednesday, down sharply versus Tuesday when the weekly data for nursing homes were included.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 2,132,321 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 27,975 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 722 to 116,862.

In Brazil, home to the world's second worst coronavirus outbreak, one thing seems to be spreading faster than the virus: the suspect, and sometimes strange, strategies to treat it.

An intense season of fires in the Amazon rainforest this year could overwhelm health systems and lead to unnecessary deaths, including of coronavirus, as pollution worsens respiratory conditions, public health experts said on Wednesday.