Worldwide cases cross 36m, death toll at 1,056,045

FE Team | Published: October 08, 2020 00:11:57

More than 36.12 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,056,045 have died, according to Worldometers tally, report agencies.
Infections have been reported in more than 213 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
The US has reported more than 7.5 million cases and 210,886 deaths from coronavirus - the world's highest.
India reported 72,049 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, dropping from the daily highs of last month in a sign infections were peaking for now, officials and experts said.
India leads the world in the average number of new infections and is expected to overtake the United States over the next several weeks as the country with the world's largest number of cases.
But since it hit a single-day high of 97,894 new cases on Sept. 17, the country has reported a downward trend with 75,909 daily cases on an average, according to a Reuters tally.
Besides, Brazil is the third worst-hit country with 4,969,141 confirmed cases and 147,494 deaths, according to JHU data.
Meanwhile, a Chinese experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by the Institute of Medical Biology under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences was shown to be safe in an early stage clinical trial, researchers said.
In a Phase 1 trial of 191 healthy participants aged between 18 and 59, vaccination with the group's experimental shot showed no severe adverse reactions.
The most common adverse reactions reported by the trial participants were mild pain, slight fatigue and redness, itching and swelling at the injection site. The candidate also induced immune response.
Another report adds: More funding is needed to develop new therapies to treat COVID-19, officials at global health charity Wellcome said on Wednesday as they warned about the low pipeline of drugs to curb the pandemic that has killed more than one million people.
Potential vaccines have received about six times more funding than for therapies, said Nick Cammack, who is in charge of COVID-19 therapeutics at Wellcome.