More than 18,000 people in Afghanistan have contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of 2023, The Ministry of Public Health of the Islamic Emirate said.

According to a leading World Health Organization official, a highly mutated COVID variant called BA.2.86 has now been detected in Switzerland and South Africa in addition to Israel, Denmark, the U.S. and the U.K.

At least 17 per cent of all funds related to the government’s coronavirus Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Programme (PPP) schemes were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors, according to a report released Tuesday by the SBA’s office of inspector general.

The process of implementing the corona vaccine campaign, which was started by the Department of Public Health of Logar Province on the 20th of May, has been successfully completed with the vaccination of more than 76,000 people.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization, with the help of the Global Vaccine Coalition, started the second round of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in 17 provinces of Afghanistan.

With the end of COVID-19 and mpox as public health emergencies of international concern, polio remains the only official global health emergency. The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom said.

COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns. The World Health Organization said.

According to the United Nations children’s agency, some 67 million children around the world partially or completely missed routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021 because of lockdowns and the disruption to healthcare caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. ambassador to China said that, China must be more honest about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marking an end to the country’s three-year “zero COVID” experiment, China has celebrated the Lunar New Year with abandon this year.

China marked the first day of “chun yun,” the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known pre-pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people.

As COVID infections in China surged following Beijing’s relaxation of its “zero-COVID” policies, the European Union has offered free vaccines to China, the EU executive said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on China to share more real-time information on Covid in the country as infections surge.

US health officials said that, the United States will impose mandatory, COVID-19 tests on travelers from China.

Chinese authorities are going door to door and paying people older than 60 to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data, as concerns grow around.

Tedros Adhanom said the agency is “very concerned” about rising reports of severe coronavirus disease across China after the country largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy.

The National Health Commission said, China reported 998 new COVID-19 infections on Oct. 22, of which 207 were symptomatic and 791 were asymptomatic.

COVID-19 is still a global emergency, nearly three years after it was first declared as one. The World Health Organization said.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit ، Activists implored world leaders Monday to prioritize school systems and restore educational budgets slashed.