Moscow, Mar 25: An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale struck off Russia's Kuril Islands on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The magnitude of the quake, which occurred at 2:49 am (UTC), was registered at a depth of 56.7 kilometres, about 219 kilometres southeast of the Russian town of Severo-Kuril'sk, the USGS said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to the property as a result of the quake.
Further details are awaited.
New Delhi, April 6: The United States has donated $2.9 million assistance package for India to help the Narendra Modi government brace itself against the coronavirus as countries across the world are coming together to combat the outbreak.
On March 28, the US government, via US Agency for International Development, announced $2.9 million to support India in its response to COVID-19.
"It builds on a foundation of over $1.4 billion in health assistance and nearly $3 billion in total assistance that the US provided to India over the last 20 years," the US Embassy in India said in a statement.
"These new funds will support two organisations, including $2.4 million for USAID's health strengthening project, implemented by Jhpiego, an international non-profit health organisation affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and $500,000 for the World Health Organization (WHO)," the statement said.
The funds will also help India combat the spread of COVID-19, provide care for the affected and support local communities with the tools needed to contain the disease, it added.
Moreover, being a global leader in health and humanitarian response to COVID-19, the US has provided approximately $18.3 million assistance package to ASEAN member countries to fight the contagion.
The funds will be used to prepare laboratories for large-scale testing for the lethal virus, infection prevention and control, enable risk communication, implement public-health emergency plans for border points of entry, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance for influenza-like illnesses, train and equip rapid-responders in investigation and contact-tracing and update training materials for health workers.
Washington, Mar 28: A US-based lab has unveiled a portable test that can tell if someone has COVID-19 in as little as five minutes, it said in a statement Friday.
Abbot Laboratories said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given it emergency authorization to begin making the test available to healthcare providers as early as next week.
The test, which is the size of a small toaster and uses molecular technology, also shows negative results within 13 minutes, the company said in a press statement.
"The COVID-19 pandemic will be fought on multiple fronts, and a portable molecular test that offers results in minutes adds to the broad range of diagnostic solutions needed to combat this virus," said Abbot president and chief operating officer Robert Ford.
The test's small size means it can be deployed outside the "traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots," Ford said, and Abbott is working with the FDA to send it to virus epicenters.
The test has not been cleared or approved by the FDA, and has only been authorized for emergency use by approved labs and healthcare providers, the company said.
Mar 6: UK stocks fell again on Friday as growing economic risks from the coronavirus outbreak shattered investor confidence, with Britain recording its first death from the pathogen.
A 1.5% fall for the FTSE 100 erased the blue-chip index's gains from earlier this week. Export-heavy companies have now lost over $230 billion in value since the epidemic sparked a worldwide rout last week.
The domestically focussed mid-cap index was down 1.9%.
Cruise operator Carnival dropped 4.2% to its lowest level since 2012, a day after its Grand Princess ocean liner was barred from returning to its home port of San Francisco on virus fears.
Britain said an older person with underlying health problems had succumbed to the flu-like virus on Thursday, while the number of infections jumped to 115.
In company news, drug maker AstraZeneca fell 1% after it said its treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal of improving overall survival in patients in a late-stage study.
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