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Spotify Technology SA's paid music subscribers surged to 130 million in the first quarter, driving shares in the Swedish music streaming firm higher as its business model proved more resilient than expected in the coronavirus lockdowns.

Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google would release two early versions this week of their proposed technology to slow coronavirus spread to select developers for testing purposes, the companies said on Wednesday.

The United Kingdom now has Europe's second-highest official death toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to new figures on Wednesday that cover fatalities in all settings, including in nursing homes.

The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France rose by 427 to 24,087 on Wednesday, while hospitalizations for the disease and people in ICU units continued to decline, the health ministry said in a statement.

Gilead Sciences Inc on Wednesday said its experimental antiviral drug remdesivir helped improve outcomes for patients with COVID-19, and provided data suggesting it worked better when given earlier in the course of infection.

Figures for the number of excess deaths in Britain as a result of the coronavirus crisis will provide a clearer picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but might not be available for a while, England's deputy Chief Medical Officer said on Wednesday.

Twitter Inc will grant researchers and software developers access to a real-time data stream of tens of millions of daily public tweets about COVID-19, which they can use to study the spread of the disease or track misinformation, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

A rigorous programme of testing for coronavirus and tracing the contacts of those found positive has helped Ghana avoid an explosion in cases that could have overwhelmed its health system, President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Wednesday.

Despite infecting more than 3 million people around the world, there are still 33 countries and territories that have yet to report a single case of the novel coronavirus.

The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) defended the agency's record in its response to the new coronavirus in a news briefing on Wednesday, saying it had acted "quickly and decisively".

Germans must persevere with social distancing or risk exponential growth in the number of coronavirus cases, four leading science institutes said on Wednesday.

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 323 on Wednesday, against 382 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new infections stood at 2,086, broadly stable from 2,091 on Tuesday.

Yemeni authorities reported multiple coronavirus infections for the first time on Wednesday, after the United Nations said it feared the disease could be spreading undetected in a country where millions are already facing famine.

Gilead Sciences Inc's experimental drug remdesivir does not speed up recovery from COVID-19 compared with placebo in critically-ill, hospitalised patients, according to data from a trial in China published in the Lancet.

Canadian hospitals had beds to spare as the country hit 50,373 confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, and several provinces were relaxing public health measures, but health experts were already worrying about a future wave of infections.

The leaders of two federations representing thousands of private laboratories across France cast doubt on the country's ability to more than double coronavirus testing before the country begins unwinding its lockdown on May 11.

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Wednesday said it would launch an investigation into says certain portable gaming systems by Nintendo Co Ltd after privately-held Gamevice Inc filed a petition alleging patent infringement.

The Serum Institute of India said on Tuesday it plans this year to produce up to 60 million doses of a potential vaccine against the new coronavirus that is under clinical trial in Britain.

The United Kingdom's COVID-19 death toll is probably higher than 27,241, making it one of the worst-hit countries in Europe, opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said on Wednesday as he questioned the government's response to the outbreak.

(This April 28 story corrects to show 1.8 billion SEK for 2019 is group revenue, not Sweden only, in paragraph 8)