Baku, Mar 2: At least 30 people died as a fire tore through a drug rehabilitation clinic in the Azerbaijani capital Baku early on Friday, the local APA news agency reported.
Firefighters and rescuers of Azerbaijan's emergencies ministry had extinguished the blaze and were investigating its causes, the news agency added.
Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.
Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.
The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.
The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.
Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"
The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.
The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.
Jun 13: Requiring the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in areas at the epicenter of the global pandemic may have prevented tens of thousands of infections, a new study suggests.
Mask-wearing is even more important for preventing the virus' spread and the sometimes deadly COVID-19 illness it causes than social distancing and stay-at-home orders, researchers said, in the study published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in New York City - at the time among the hardest hit areas of the world by the health crisis - the study found.
"This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9," researchers calculated.
When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.
Direct contact precautions - social distancing, quarantine and isolation, and hand sanitizing - were all in place before mask-wearing rules went into effect in Italy and New York City. But they only help minimize virus transmission by direct contact, while face covering helps prevent airborne transmission, the researchers say.
"The unique function of face covering to block atomization and inhalation of virus-bearing aerosols accounts for the significantly reduced infections," they said. That would indicate "that airborne transmission of COVID-19 represents the dominant route for infection."
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday urged organizers of large gatherings that involve "shouting, chanting or singing to strongly encourage the use of cloth face coverings to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus."
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.
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