French President Emmanuel Macron has joined African leaders to kick off a planned $1 billion project to accelerate the rollout of vaccines in Africa.

Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the World Health Organization has paid $250 each to at least 104 women in Congo who say they were sexually abused or exploited by Ebola outbreak responders.

Health authorities in Africa say they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak here as an emergency and call on rich countries to share the world's limited supply of vaccines.

Genetic analysis of recent monkeypox cases suggests there are two distinct strains in the United States That raises the possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for some time.

The World Health Organization’s top monkeypox expert said she doesn’t expect the hundreds of cases reported to date to turn into another pandemic.

Health experts say South Africa is seeing a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases driven by yet another version of the coronavirus.

A child has now died from a mysterious outbreak of hepatitis that’s affecting children around the world, health officials said.

The World Health Organization says at least one death has been reported in connection with a mysterious liver disease outbreak affecting children in Europe and the United States.

The World Health Organization says that the number of reported new COVID-19 cases worldwide decreased by nearly a quarter last week.

The World Health Organization has issued a global alert to be on the lookout for mysterious cases of hepatitis occurring in children.

New COVID-19 cases continue to fall in the United States, and more states and communities are rolling back precautions. But experts are carefully monitoring a variant of omicron known as BA.2.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prestigious Peace Prize, has issued a very rare admonition to the 2019 winner, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, over the war and humanitarian crisis in his country’s Tigray region.

Experts are concerned that a new variant of COVID-19, “omicron,” could possibly be even more contagious than the delta variant and more resistant to vaccinations.

The crowd deaths at a Houston music festival have added to the long list of people who have been crushed at a major event.

The World Health Organization says the number of new COVID-19 cases continued to fall last week, with 3.6 million new cases reported globally, down from 4 million new infections the previous week.

COVID-19 vaccinations and masks will be required for all Broadway audience members when theaters reopen in the coming weeks.

Africa is facing a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 infections whose peak will surpass that of earlier waves as the continent’s countries struggle to vaccinate even a small percentage of the population.

The IOC vice president in charge of the Tokyo Olympics says the games will open in just over two months even if the city and other parts of Japan are under a state of emergency because of rising COVID-19 cases.

(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)GENEVA – A top World Health Organization expert on the coronavirus pandemic said Monday the weekly global count of deaths from COVID-19 is rising again, a “worrying sign” after about six weeks of declines. She said the number of reported cases went up up in four of the WHO’s six regions, though there were significant variations within each region. “In the last week, cases have increased by 8% percent,” Van Kerkhove told reporters. The eastern Mediterranean region saw cases rise 8% percent, while the number of cases reported in the Americas and Africa declined. Ad“I do want to mention that it had been about six weeks where we were seeing decreases in deaths,” said Van Kerkhove.

But that knowledge belongs to the large pharmaceutical companies who have produced the first three vaccines authorized by countries including Britain, the European Union and the U.S. — Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. AdThe deal-by-deal approach also means that some poorer countries end up paying more for the same vaccine than richer countries. AstraZeneca said the price of the vaccine will differ depending on local production costs and how much countries order. Pharmaceutical companies say instead of lifting IP restrictions, rich countries should simply give more vaccines to poorer countries through COVAX, the public-private initiative WHO helped create for more equitable vaccine distribution. “People are literally dying because we cannot agree on intellectual property rights,” said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat involved in the WTO discussions.

Scientists say there is reason for concern and more to learn but that the new variants should not cause alarm. Worry has been growing since before Christmas, when Britain’s prime minister said the coronavirus variant seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England. A: New variants have been seen almost since the virus was first detected in China nearly a year ago. Scientists are still working to confirm whether the variant in England spreads more easily, but they are finding some evidence that it does. A: Scientists believe current vaccines will still be effective against the variant, but they are working to confirm that.

LONDON – The World Health Organization’s Europe director said Thursday that the 54-country region has again reached a new weekly record for confirmed cases, with more than 1.5 million confirmed last week and more than 10 million since the start of the pandemic. “Europe is at the epicenter of this pandemic once again,” Kluge said. Along with the usual European countries, WHO includes includes Russia and some central Asian countries like Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in its Europe region. But numerous countries across Europe such as Britain, failed to do so. “We are also confident that children and adolescents are not considered primary drivers of COVID-19 transmission," he said.

New Yorks new round of shutdowns zeroes in on individual neighborhoods, closing schools and businesses in hot spots measuring just a few square miles. New York’s new round of virus shutdowns zeroes in on individual neighborhoods, closing schools and businesses in hot spots measuring just a couple of square miles. The damage doesn't feel so minimal to Steven Goldstein, who had to close his New York City men's hat shop last week. In New York City, people can escape restrictions entirely by taking the subway one or two stops. For hot spot shutdowns to work, public health experts say, the message behind the measures is key.

Europes second wave of coronavirus infections has struck well before flu season even started. Spain this week declared a state of emergency for Madrid amid increasing tensions between local and national authorities over virus containment measures. “I have to say clearly that the situation is not good," the Czech interior minister, Jan Hamacek, acknowledged this week. “We are in the fall wave without having resolved the summer wave,” she told an online forum this week. Half of Campania’s 100 ICU virus beds are now in use.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Drownings in Lake Michigan have reached record levels with at least 53 people dead so far this year, according to a water safety advocacy group. The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, a nonprofit that tracks Great Lakes drownings, said that compares with 48 drownings in 2019 and 42 in 2018. Since 2010, there has been a total of 434 drownings in Lake Michigan, according to the project. Benjamin said the group collects information about fatal incidents from news articles, social media reports, and tips from family members and witnesses. He added that social media has helped the tracker to be more accurate.

BEIJING Two World Health Organization experts will spend the next two days in the Chinese capital to lay the groundwork for a larger mission to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 120 nations called for an investigation into the origins of the virus at the World Health Assembly in May. China has insisted that WHO lead the investigation and for it to wait until the pandemic is brought under control. The last WHO coronavirus-specific mission to China was in February, after which the teams leader, Canadian doctor Bruce Aylward, praised Chinas containment efforts and information-sharing. An Associated Press investigation showed that In January, WHO officials were privately frustrated over the lack of transparency and access in China, according to internal audio recordings.

BANGKOK – The World Health Organization (WHO) said it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the malaria drug U.S. President Trump said he is taking — from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there would be a “temporary pause" on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial. The announcement came after a paper in the Lancet showed that people taking the drug were at higher risk of death and heart problems. Still, several countries in Europe and North Africa are using chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. Other treatments in the WHO study, including the experimental drug remdesivir and an HIV combination therapy, are still being pursued.

Andrew Cuomo, who has presided over the state with the highest death toll from the scourge, rang the bell to set off trading at the NYSE. But in the years since, the rise of electronic trading from computer terminals grew to dominate the action on Wall Street. The true death toll is widely believed to be significantly higher, with experts saying many victims died of the virus without ever being tested for it. Trump several months ago likened the coronavirus to the flu and dismissed worries it could lead to so many deaths. Russia reported a record one-day spike Tuesday of 174 deaths, bringing the country’s confirmed death toll to over 3,800.

Over the weekend, the World Health Organization (WHO) worked to clarify its brief on COVID-19 “immunity passports" that first stated there was “no evidence” that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection. To clarify its stance on COVID-19 immunity, WHO said it expects most people who are infected with COVID-19 will develop an “antibody response that will provide some level of protection.”“What we don’t yet know is the level of protection or how long it will last. We are working with scientists around the world to better understand the body’s response to COVID-19 infection. Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on "immunity passports". The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify:We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.

GENEVA (AP) – The World Health Organization chief warned Monday that “the worst is yet ahead of us” in the coronavirus outbreak, reviving the alarm just as many countries ease restrictive measures aimed at reducing its spread. He and others, however, have previously pointed to the likely future spread of the illness through Africa, where health systems are far less developed. The worst is yet ahead of us,” Tedros told reporters from WHO headquarters in Geneva. Among other things, Trump insisted WHO had failed to adequately share “in a timely and transparent” way information about the outbreak after it erupted in China late last year. It’s a health issue.”“This virus is dangerous.

There is a lot of information coming out each day about the novel coronavirus COVID-19, but amid the pandemic, there are also a lot of myths. The World Health Organization is setting straight some invalid things you might have seen or heard about COVID-19. There are no specific medicines to prevent or treat the COVID-19 virus. COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in hot and humid climates. This specific virus, because it’s so new and different, will need its own vaccine.

Does anyone else feel like we’re in the midst of some pretty unsettling times? Even if you’re trying to keep a level head about where things stand with the coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to turn on the TV or open social media and start to feel pretty overwhelmed, pretty quickly. For some, you can’t go out to eat, you’re now working from home and your kids aren’t even going to school. And with that, we thought we’d provide the following playbook. Yes, there is some science jargon involved here, but we tried to break it down for you in a way that’s easy to read and digestible.

Expressing increasing alarm about mounting infections, the World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who heads the U.N. agency, said the WHO is “deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity” of the outbreak. He also expressed concern about “the alarming levels of inaction.”“We have, therefore, made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” he said at a briefing in Geneva. “All countries can still change the course of this pandemic. If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response,” Tedros said.

DETROIT – President Donald Trump approved emergency funding to fight coronavirus Friday as the number of cases hit 100,000 worldwide. The president signed an $8 million spending bill that will help fund vaccines, testing, treatment and preparations to stop the spread of the illness. Trump’s administration is trying to calm fears after growing scrutiny that the goal to have one million tests ready by the end of the week won’t be met. Top health official Dr. Anthony Fauci said the number is on track to hit one million in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, countries are urged to do everything they possibly can to stop the spread of coronavirus.

DETROIT – The response to coronavirus is escalating as the United States sees the number of confirmed cases continue to rise. Ask Dr. McGeorgeWashington and California are both under a state of emergency, and a cruise ship linked to three confirmed cases of the illnesses is docked outside of California. In New York, there are now 22 cases. The Senate passed an $8 million emergency funding bill, and President Donald Trump’s administration said they are working to get more test kits out. In the meantime, the World Health Organization has warned countries to not underestimate the coronavirus threat.

Copyright 2020 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. THIS STREAM HAS ENDEDWatch live coverage as World Health Organization officials in Geneva, Switzerland, provide an update on novel coronavirus. (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) If you need help with the Public File, call (313) 222-0566.