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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to per-manently cut off the nation’s funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) if the body does not commit to what he called “substantive improve-ments within the next 30 days.”

In a letter to WHO Direc-tor-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a copy of which was published by Trump on Twitter, the president added that he could reconsider the U.S. membership in the organization.

The threat came as the world continues to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected more than 4.8 million people globally and killed over 318,000.

The United States alone has reported more than 1.5 million infections and over 90,000 deaths as of 4:03 p.m. Monday, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. Both figures are far higher than those in any other country or region.

Trump announced in mid-

April that his administration would halt U.S. funding to the WHO, a roundly-criticized move that many experts have said was trying to shift blame and would be counterproductive to address-ing the public health crisis.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that time had been wasted in the U.S. response.

“It’s heartbreaking to think how much fear, how much loss, how much agony could have been avoided if the president

hadn’t wasted so much time and taken responsibility,” Biden told a virtual event. “We got denials, delays, distraction.”

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the WHO is a specialized agency of the United Nations for inter-national public health, which has played a crucial role in coor-dinating the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

During the ongoing World Health Assembly, many world leaders have strongly defended the WHO and voiced their

support for the organization to continue its leading in the coro-navirus battle.

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), praised the WHO in April.

“WHO has been a long-term, and still, is a great partner for us. We’re going to continue to do all we can together to try to limit this,” Redfield said. “We’ve worked together to fight health crises all around the world. We continue to do that.” (Xinhua)

Trump threatens to freeze funding to WHO forever

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday made the surpris-ing assertion that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that his own government experts say is not suitable for fighting the novel coronavirus.

Trump, noting that he has tested negative for the virus and shows no symptoms, said he had been taking the drug as a preventative measure “for about a week and a half.”

“I take a pill every day,” he said, adding that he combines this with zinc.

Asked why, he said: “Because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories.”

Trump has shown interest for weeks in promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine, even if some doctors think it does not work for coronavirus patients and U.S. Government regulators warn it has “not been shown to be safe.”

Trump’s latest remarks came out of the blue, imme-diately grabbing headlines on a day when U.S. deaths from COVID-19 topped 90,000 people — almost a third of the total world toll.

“You’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the front-line work-ers, before you catch it. The front-line workers — many,

many are taking it. I happen to be taking it,” he let slip to reporters attending a White House meeting devoted to the struggling restaurant industry.

“I’m taking it, hydroxy-chloroquine, right now, yeah. A couple of weeks ago, I started taking it,” he said.

Trump has often played down the dangers of coronavi-rus, including last week when he said it threatened only a small number of people. He also pointedly refuses to wear a mask, despite federal recom-mendations to do so and the fact that most of his staff have taken to covering their faces in public.

(SD-Agencies)

Trump reveals he is taking anti-malaria drug

MODERNA Inc’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the first to be tested in the United States, produced protective antibodies in a small group of healthy vol-unteers, according to very early data released by the biotech company Monday.

The data comes from eight people who took part in a 45-subject safety trial that kicked off in March. The Moderna vaccine is one of more than 100 under development intended to protect against the novel corona-virus that has infected more than 4.8 million people globally.

Overall, the study showed the vaccine was safe and all study participants produced antibod-ies against the virus.

An analysis of the response in the eight individuals showed that those who received a 100-microgram dose and people who received a 25-microgram dose had levels of protective antibodies to fend off the virus that exceeded those found in the blood of people who recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

The news, issued in a release by the U.S. biotechnology com-pany, lifted shares of Moderna by 20%.

Moderna launched a US$1.34 billion share offering at an offer price of US$76 per share late Monday. The company had ear-lier said it plans to sell US$1.25

billion in common stock to raise money for vaccine development and manufacturing.

“These are significant findings but it is a Phase 1 clinical trial that only included eight people. It was designed for safety, not for efficacy,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was not involved in the study.

The very early data offers a glimmer of hope for a vaccine among the most advanced in development.

Adalja said many glitches can occur between now and the time this vaccine is tested for efficacy in thousands of people. “What we do see is encouraging,” he said.

Scientists are trying to under-stand what level of antibodies will ultimately prove protective against the novel coronavirus, and how long that protection will last.

Moderna said the vaccine appeared to show a dose response, meaning that people who the 100 mcg dose produced more antibodies than people who got the lower dose.

The vaccine has gotten the green light to start the second stage of human testing. Last week, U.S. regulators gave the vaccine “fast-track” status to speed up the regulatory review.

(SD-Agencies)

Vaccine from Moderna appears safe, shows promise in data

FOREIGN ministers from 11 European countries agreed Monday to the terms for the reopening of borders and restor-ing the freedom of movement of European citizens, according to a joint declaration released by the Portuguese Diplomatic portal.

Gathering by video confer-ence, representatives from Ger-many, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia concerted to restore “freedom of movement and circulation in the European Union,” said the declaration.

Based on the principles of pro-portionality and nondiscrimina-

tion, the ministers agreed that, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Europe needs to go further.

The meeting defined the “survey of border control mea-sures, resumption of transport and connectivity services, in addition to the progressive restart of tourism services and health protocols in hotel establishments,” said the dec-laration.

The opening will be done in stages, coordinated between EU member states and gradual to “avoid the risk that a rise in infections could get out of con-trol,” it added. (Xinhua)

11 European countries prepare to reopen borders

PATIENTS who test positive for the coronavirus weeks after recovering from COVID-19 prob-ably are not capable of transmit-ting the infection, research from South Korea shows.

Scientists from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 285 COVID-19 survivors who had tested posi-tive for the coronavirus after their illness had apparently resolved, as indicated by a previous negative test result. The so-called reposi-tive patients were not found to have spread any lingering infec-tion, and virus samples collected from them could not be grown in

culture, indicating the patients were shedding noninfectious or dead virus particles.

The findings, reported late Monday, are a positive sign for regions looking to open up as more patients recover from the pandemic that has sickened at least 4.8 million people. The emerging evidence from South Korea suggests those who have recovered from COVID-19 pres-ent no risk of spreading the coro-navirus when physical distancing measures are relaxed.

The results mean health authorities in South Korea will no longer consider people infec-

tious after recovering from the illness. Research last month showed that so-called PCR tests for the coronavirus’s nucleic acid cannot distinguish between dead and viable virus particles, poten-tially giving the wrong impression that someone who tests positive for the virus remains infectious.

South Korean authorities said that under revised protocols, people should no longer be required to test negative for the virus before returning to work or school after they have recovered from their illness and completed their period of isolation.

(SD-Agencies)

‘Patients testing positive after recovery not infectious’

Chinese students donate PPE to US hospitalsRepresentatives from International Leadership of Texas (ILTexas) Houston area and HCA Houston Healthcare West pose for a group photo at the donation handover ceremony in Houston of Texas, the United States, on Monday. Personal protective equipment (PPE) from China was donated to hospitals and health centers in the U.S. state of Texas on Monday. Organized by ILTexas, a free public charter school with many locations throughout Texas, the donation was purchased with the fund raised by the students from IL Texas’ sister schools in China. Xinhua