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 Peru's death toll now worst in world per capita
Peru on Monday almost tripled its official COVID-19 death toll to
180,764, following a government review, making it the country with
the worst death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins
University data.
Peru has been among the hardest hit Latin America countries, with
its hospitals overcrowded with patients and demand for oxygen
outstripping availability. Experts had long warned that the true
death toll was being undercounted in official statistics.
The government said it will now update its death count, which stood
at 69,342 as of Sunday, in part because of a lack of testing that
made it difficult to confirm whether a person had died due to the
virus or some other cause.
Venezuela begins vaccination programme
Hundreds of senior citizens and health workers stood in long lines
on Monday to get vaccinated as part of Venezuela's inoculation
campaign, which has been held up by payment problems and political
disputes.
The government of President Nicolas Maduro for months said it was
unable to pay for vaccines due to U.S. sanctions, but last month
announced it had come up with the funds to enter the global COVAX
program.
The campaign that officially began over the weekend is using
vaccines provided by Russia and China. Reuters data shows that only
1.1% of the population has received at least one vaccine shot so
far.
Eli Lilly gets Indian emergency use nod for drug combination
Eli Lilly and Co's antibody drug combination has received an
emergency use approval in India for the treatment of
mild-to-moderate COVID-19, bolstering the country's arsenal of
medicines to tackle a devastating second wave.
A combination of the U.S. drugmaker's monoclonal antibodies
bamlanivimab and etesevimab has been given approval for restricted
use in emergency situations in hospital settings in adults.
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Monoclonal antibodies mimic natural antibodies
that the body generates to fight infection.
Australia's Victoria calls for patience
Australia's Victoria state authorities said on
Tuesday that it was still unclear whether a snap
one-week lockdown to contain a fresh COVID-19
outbreak would end as planned on Thursday night,
as the state grapples with a growing virus
outbreak.
Australia's second-most populous state was
plunged into the lockdown on May 27 after the
state reported its first locally transmitted
cases in nearly three months early last week.
Nine new locally acquired COVID-19 cases were
reported on Tuesday taking the total infections
in the clusters to 54. Tuesday's data includes
six cases announced on Monday which were
recorded after the midnight cut-off deadline.
Coronavirus variants get new names
Coronavirus variants with clunky, alphanumeric
names have now been assigned the letters of the
Greek Alphabet in a bid to simplify discussion
and pronunciation while avoiding stigma.
The World Health Organization revealed the new
names on Monday amid criticism that those given
by scientists such as the so-called South
African variant which goes by multiple names
including B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2 were
too complicated.
As such, the four variants considered of concern
by the U.N. agency and known generally by the
public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India
variants have now been given the letters Alpha,
Beta, Gamma, Delta according to the order of
their detection.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes, Editing by William
Maclean)
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