China cannot relax its zero-Covid policy just yet despite the low fatality rate of Omicron, say medical experts.

UN officials said they expected the wave of refugees to intensify further as the Russian army pressed its offensive, particularly toward the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Since Russia invaded on February 24, a total of 922,400 people have fled Ukraine to Poland. Hungary, Moldova, Romanian and Slovakia have also seen Ukrainian...

Scientists warn that potential new variants and unequal vaccination rates threaten any long-awaited return to normality.

A large number of kits of the PCR test has been manufactured and used across the world in general and the GCC in particular.

The failure of countries to crack down on the marketing of breast milk substitutes means far too many children are still being reared on formula, the World Health Organization and the UN children's agency Unicef have warned in a new report.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has praised the World Health Organization for its decision to pick Egypt and five other countries in Africa to manufacture Covid vaccine in the continent to fight off the virus.

Six African countries have been chosen to establish their own mRNA vaccine production, the World Health Organization said Friday, with the continent largely shut out of access to Covid jabs.

The fast spreading and heavily mutated Omicron variant has rapidly become the dominant variant worldwide since it was first detected in southern Africa 10 weeks ago.

The countries need to work harder to ensure equitable access to vaccines and treatment, track the virus and its emerging variants, and keep restrictions in place, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN health agency's executive board.

Omicron leads to less severe infection among vaccinated people, has raised long-awaited hopes to bring an end to Covid-19 pandemic.

The WHO has warned that the sheer numbers of people infected will mean many people are still falling seriously ill and dying.

The WHO's Covid-19 treatment recommendations are updated regularly based on new data from clinical trials.

More than half of people in Europe will likely catch Omicron by March, the WHO has said amid a World Bank warning that it could hamper global economic recovery.

The Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-Co-VAC), an expert group created by the WHO to assess the performance of such vaccines, said that simply providing fresh jabs of existing Covid vaccines as new strains of the virus emerge was not the best way to fight the pandemic.

Omicron transmitted very efficiently between people due to a number of reason including make-up of the Covid-19 variant and increased social mixing and not adhering to measures such as physical distancing.

World Bank support for Iran's Covid-19 response is expected to help the country mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis within its borders, with the development lender having already called the nation the epicenter of Covid-19 infections in the region.

Just under 9.5 million new Covid-19 cases were reported to the WHO last week — a record, up 71 percent on the week before. But even this was an underestimate, as it did not reflect the backlog of testing around the Christmas-New Year holidays, positive self-tests not registered, and overburdened...

As the year drew to a close, the emergence of the Omicron variant pushed the number of daily new Covid-19 cases past one million for the first time. France on Friday became the latest country to announce Omicron was now its dominant coronavirus strain.

Aviation giant Emirates said Thursday it expects business to grow next year despite the surge in global coronavirus cases fueled by the Omicron variant. The Dubai-based carrier said in November it was already on the path to recovery as six-month losses dropped by more than half from a year earlier....

Omicron is behind rapid virus spikes in several countries, including those where it has already overtaken the previously-dominant Delta variant, the WHO said in its Covid-19 weekly epidemiological update.

Omicron now accounts for 73.2 percent of new US cases over the past week ending Saturday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his message marking the International Universal Health Coverage Day said that with the third year of the pandemic fast approaching, "we must urgently strengthen our health systems to ensure they are equitable, resilient and capable of meeting everyone’s needs, including for their mental health.''

According to WHO, the existing vaccines might prove less effective against the new Omicron variant as it counts more than 30 mutations on the spike protein that dots the surface of the coronavirus and allows it to invade cells.

There had been a spike in the number of children under five admitted to hospital since Omicron emerged.

According to the economists, Omicron's threat to economy will likely be less severe than the previous waves.

Nations with high vaccination rates are also struggling to contain rising infection numbers of Covid-19.

All travelers flying to Canada need to be tested at the airport upon landing except for the US.

The World Health Organization called Tuesday for countries to keep calm and take "rational" measures in response to the new, fast-spreading Covid variant Omicron, which has sparked global panic.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said another disastrous pandemic was bound to happen unless countries strengthened global defenses.

WHO says the new variant ‘has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.’

The main barriers to accessing the lifesaving medicine, namely high prices, low availability of human insulin, a market dominated by just a few producers, and weak health systems.

70% passenger loss is forecast for the Middle East which is reeling under lockdowns, travel, and quarantine restrictions and 56% for the Middle East.

Meeting in person for the first time in two years, G20 leaders had climate change, the Covid pandemic, a tax deal and global economy worries on agenda.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus bluntly told the G20 they could no longer leave poorer countries hanging in the pandemic.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said a reduction of cases in any one country will not be sustained over time without a coordinated, equitable approach. ‘For everyone’s sake, we must urgently bring all countries to a high level of vaccination coverage,’ he said.

The rate of hospitalization and deaths more among unvaccinated people in the countries that have provided information.

In his first speech to the UN as president, Biden told delegates that the US had put more than $15 billion towards the global Covid response and shipped more than 160 million doses to other countries.

Lebanon is undergoing one of the worst economic crises in the world, with economists predicting that hyperinflation is imminent in the country.

An annual survey by the Clean Air Fund has highlighted that the air quality remains low on the list of funding priorities

The disease, which robs people of their "memories, independence and dignity", is on the rise worldwide but few countries are equipped to fight it.

The strain, known scientifically as B.1.621, has been classified as a "variant of interest", in the global health body’s weekly pandemic bulletin

Tourists will have to do a mandatory RTPCR test on arrival, according to the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority.

The UN leaders released a joint statement in which they condemned what they called the ‘crisis of vaccine inequity,’ among countries.

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus also urged wealthy countries to suspend plans to provide booster shots.

Experts predict AI will contribute $320 billion to the Middle East economy by 2030 and virtual care, remote patient monitoring and AI expected to account for 30 percent of hospital investment.

Locating origins of the pandemic began important for establishing the origins of all future animal-human spillover events, WHO said.

The virus, which is carried by bats and has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent, was found in samples taken from a patient who died on August 2 in southern Gueckedou prefecture

Several countries report baby foods producers invoking unfounded fears that breastfeeding can transmit virus.

The highly-transmissible variant, first detected in India, has now surfaced in 132 territories and is partly to blame for an 80 percent rise in coronavirus deaths in Africa over the past four weeks.

Bahrain has seen more than 269,000 Covid-19 cases of the pandemic, which has resulted in 1,383 deaths