Abbott agreed to enter into a consent decree with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration related to the company’s Sturgis, Mich., infant formula plant. The decree is an agreement between the FDA and Abbott on the steps necessary to resume production and maintain the facility. This does not affect any other Abbott plant or operation. The decree is subject to court approval.
Standing tall in bright red hazmat suits, five North Korean health workers stride towards an ambulance to do battle with a COVID-19 outbreak that – in the presumed absence of vaccines – the country is using antibiotics and home remedies to treat. The isolated state is one of only two countries yet to begin a vaccination campaign and, until last week, had insisted it was COVID-free. Now North Korea is mobilizing forces including the army and a public information campaign to combat what authorities have acknowledged is an “explosive” outbreak.
Shanghai set out plans on May 16 for the end of a painful COVID-19 lockdown that has lasted more than six weeks, heavily bruising China’s economy, and for the return of more normal life from June 1.
Leader Kim Jong Un ordered North Korea’s military to stabilize distribution of COVID-19 medicine in the capital, Pyongyang, in the battle against the country’s first confirmed outbreak of the disease, state media said.
North Korea’s admission that it is battling an “explosive” COVID-19 outbreak raised concerns that the virus could devastate a country with an under-resourced health system, limited testing capabilities, and no vaccine program.
At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died in North Korea and hundreds of thousands have shown fever symptoms, state media said on May 13, offering hints at the potentially dire scale of the country’s first confirmed outbreak of the pandemic.
As previously reported by BioSpace, a group of scientists from the Babraham Institute in the United Kingdom was able to successfully rejuvenate skin cells by a full 30 years.
The White House is preparing for a scenario in which Congress fails to approve President Joe Biden’s request for additional COVID funds by reviewing old contracts to see if there is any money it can “claw back,” the president’s top COVID adviser said on May 12.
The state of Massachusetts on May 12 agreed to pay $56 million to resolve a lawsuit by families of veterans who contracted COVID-19 during an outbreak at a veterans’ care center that killed 84 people early in the pandemic.
Half of the COVID-19 patients discharged from a Chinese hospital in early 2020 still have at least one symptom two years later, a new study shows. Additionally, new findings suggest patterns of inflammatory proteins in the blood of people with long COVID may someday help guide individualized treatment.
Kyodo/via REUTERS