The World Health Organization has declared the COVID-19 Omicron variant a “variant of concern”, citing an unusually large number of mutations present in the new strain’s genetic structure. Pockets of the SARS-CoV-2 variant, previously identified as B.1.1.529, have been identified in Africa, Asia and Europe, and has health officials worried that thisread more
CovidThe discovery of a mistake in the timeline of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the focus of the origin of the highly-contagious coronavirus away from the lab-leak hypothesis and back to the probability that the first patient was directly infected by an animal from the Huananread more
Five million people globally have been confirmed to have died from COVID-19 since the first known patient was diagnosed with the SARS-like disease just 23 months ago in China. Infections from the fast-spreading coronavirus have now become the world’s third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke. Althoughread more
Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics are reporting that their antiviral drug, molnupiravir, is showing promising signs of being effective at preventing severe cases of COVID-19 in patients with mild to moderate forms of the disease. Taken orally, the treatment could be used by patients in their ownread more