Remdesivir is seen in a lab of Eva Pharma drugmaker in Giza Province, Egypt, on July 2, 2020. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)
- China hands over 1,000 ventilators to Pakistan to fight COVID-19
- Japan to complete Avigan drug clinical tests to treat COVID-19 in Sept.
- Hindu priest, head of Ram Temple trust, tests positive for COVID-19
- Italy to launch COVID-19 testing on travelers returning from Greece, Spain, Malta, Croatia
- Democratic leaders slam Trump administration for refusing to budge in COVID-19 relief talks
- COVID-19 cases among U.S. children in the United States increase sharply
BEIJING, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health workers arrange the vials after collecting blood samples during serological survey for COVID-19 screening in New Delhi, India, Aug. 6, 2020. (Xinhua/Partha Sarkar)
MUMBAI -- India's Cadila Healthcare has launched Remdesivir lyophilized injection to treat COVID-19 patients, a company statement said Thursday.
The price was at 37.4 U.S. dollars for 100 mg vial.
In June, the Indian company entered into a non-exclusive agreement with U.S. bio-pharmaceutical company - Gilead Sciences Inc., to manufacture and sell Remdesivir, the investigational drug which has been issued an Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients suffering from severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Photo taken on June 16, 2020 shows the medical supplies donated to Pakistan from the Chinese government at the Islamabad International Airport, near Islamabad, Pakistan. (Xinhua/Li Hao)
ISLAMABAD -- China handed over 1,000 BiPAP ventilators to Pakistan on Thursday at the Islamabad International Airport in an effort to help the South Asian country battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a handover ceremony held at the airport, Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), appreciated the government and people of China for the continuous assistance to his country during the pandemic.
Photo taken on Aug. 12, 2020 shows a bottle of hand sanitizer for customers to use in a food court area in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Liu Changchang/Xinhua)
CANBERRA -- Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd has urged people to remain cautious though the number of new COVID-19 cases has started to decline.
Kidd said on Thursday that Australia needs to "wait and see" if strict COVID-19 restrictions across Victoria were having the desired effect.
People wearing face masks are seen on a street in Tokyo, Japan, on July 31, 2020. (Xinhua/Du Xiaoyi)
TOKYO -- Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. said on Thursday that it expects to finish clinical tests of anti-flu drug Avigan, a potential candidate treatment drug to treat COVID-19, in September.
Avigan, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings, is believed to be of benefit to those diagnosed with milder cases of COVID-19, or those newly infected with the virus, as a treatment for the symptoms.
The clinical tests first started in March to see if the drug is effective in treating patients with COVID-19 and the company had hoped to finish them by June. However, the number of confirmed cases in the country was on a downtrend at that time, making it difficult to meet the enrollment target of 96.
NEW DELHI -- Hindu priest and the head of Ram Temple trust, who recently shared stage with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a ceremony for Ram Temple has tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Thursday.
The 82-year-old Mahant Nritya Gopal Das was among the five people on the stage at the grand ceremony at Ayodhya on Aug. 5.
"We checked for coronavirus, did antigen test and there is positivity," Sarvagya Ram Mishra, District Magistrate of Mathura, told reporters.
Apart from Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Governor of Uttar Pradesh Anandiben Patel and Chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat were also on the stage with the Hindu priest.
BEIJING -- China's Changsha municipal government has donated 40,000 medical-grade face masks to Annapolis, its sister city in the United States, local media reported.
The donation from Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan Province, was first offered to officials of Maryland's capital city Annapolis in April, when the need for masks among public safety workers was at its highest in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement by Annapolis City Manager David Jarrell.
The masks arrived in August, with one of the boxes featuring stickers of American and Chinese flags with a message reading: "Go, City of Annapolis! Best Wishes from Changsha! True unity inspires people to work as one to overcome adversity," the Capital Gazette newspaper reported.
Photo taken on Aug. 10, 2020 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Democratic leaders on Wednesday lashed out at the Trump administration for refusing to budge on their position on the size and scope of the next COVID-19 relief package, as the two sides remain deadlocked over the issue.
"Democrats have compromised," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement, reiterating Democrats are willing to come down 1 trillion U.S. dollars if the Trump administration will come up 1 trillion dollars.
"However, it is clear that the Administration still does not grasp the magnitude of the problems that American families are facing," Pelosi and Schumer said.
The Democratic leaders' statement came after a conversation with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier in the day.
A man wearing a face mask walks on a street in Rome, Italy, Aug. 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Cheng Tingting)
ROME -- Italy will carry out COVID-19 tests on people returning from Greece, Spain, Malta, and Croatia, said Italian officials on Wednesday.
The decision was announced late in the day after an emergency meeting between Italy's ministers of Health and of Regional Affairs and the governors of the country's 20 regions.
The urgent talks were called after several cases of people returning from the above-mentioned European countries and developing the infection were confirmed.
"I signed a decree providing for a DNA test or antigen swab test on those returning from Croatia, Greece, Malta, and Spain," Health Minister Roberto Speranza wrote on Twitter.
Children play on the Charging Bull in New York, the United States, July 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
WASHINGTON -- The number of COVID-19 cases among children in the United States has increased sharply recently as a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association (CHA) showed a 90-percent surge in child cases over four weeks.
Leading experts told Xinhua on Wednesday that factors including high COVID-19 infections among adults, increasing gatherings among teenagers and returning to school during the pandemic may contribute to the high infections among children.
"The sharp increase in the number of cases among children is mainly concentrated in COVID-19 'hotspots' such as California, Florida and Arizona. The surge in adult cases in these states also led to an increase in children infections," Zhang Zuofeng, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research with the school of public health at University of California, Los Angeles, told Xinhua.■
