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 Indian states run out of COVID-19 vaccines
Several Indian states have run out of COVID-19 vaccines a day before
a planned widening of a nationwide inoculation drive, authorities
said on Friday, as new infections surged to another daily record.
India reported 386,452 news cases in the last 24 hours, while deaths
from COVID-19 jumped by 3,498, health ministry data showed.
However, medical experts believe actual COVID-19 numbers may be five
to 10 times greater than the official tally.
Brazil passes 400,000 COVID-19 fatalities
Brazil became the second country to pass 400,000 COVID-19 deaths
after the United States, and experts said the daily toll could
remain high for several months because of slow vaccinations and
loosening social restrictions.
Brazil on Thursday registered 3,001 COVID-19 deaths, taking its
total since the pandemic began to 401,186 fatalities, the Health
Ministry said.
A surge of infections this year has pushed hospitals around the
country to the brink of their capacities and led to 100,000 deaths
in just over a month.
Pfizer begins to export U.S.-made shots
Pfizer's shipment of COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico this week includes
doses made in its U.S. plant, the first of what are expected to be
ongoing exports from the United States, a source familiar with the
matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The vaccine shipment, produced at Pfizer's Kalamazoo, Michigan
plant, marks the first time the drugmaker has delivered abroad from
U.S facilities after a Trump-era restriction on dose exports expired
at the end of March, the source said.
The U.S. government has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks
to provide surplus vaccines to other nations desperately in need as
it makes swift progress vaccinating its own residents.
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 Singapore finds COVID-19
cluster in hospital
Singapore has detected a COVID-19 cluster in one
its largest hospitals, among 16 new locally
transmitted infections that were reported on
Thursday, its highest number of domestic cases
in seven months.
Singapore has contained its coronavirus
outbreaks since a big contagion among migrant
workers in dormitories last year. Most of its
subsequent cases have been imported and found in
quarantine.
Eight of the cases announced late Thursday were
linked to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the health
ministry said. The hospital's cases include a
doctor and a nurse who were vaccinated for the
coronavirus. Both had symptoms.
Cambodians complain of lockdown hunger
Residents in Cambodia's capital gathered on Friday to demand food
from the government, outraged at what they called inadequate aid
distribution during a tough lockdown that bars people from leaving
their homes.
Authorities put Phnom Penh and a nearby town under a hard lockdown
on April 19 to quell a surge in coronavirus infections that has seen
Cambodia's case total balloon from about 500 to 12,641 since late
February, including all 91 of its deaths.
"People in my village haven't received a food donation yet. It has
been 10 days," factory worker Oum Sreykhouch, 25, told Reuters by
telephone.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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