COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by a Sinopharm subsidiary and Sinovac Biotech to target the Omicron variant were approved for clinical trials in Hong Kong, the companies said on April 16.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) added 12 China companies to their delisting watchlist.

The FDA issued new guidance, titled “Diversity Plans to Improve Enrollment of Participants from Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Subgroups in Clinical Trials,” that calls for companies to submit a Race and Ethnicity Diversity Plan to include more underrepresented minority populations in the United States.

The head of the World Trade Organization told Reuters on April 14 that negotiations on an intellectual property deal for COVID-19 vaccines were ongoing between the four parties, saying they were seeking to agree on the proposal’s final terms.

A fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech provided significant added protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death for at least a month in older individuals, according to a study from Israel conducted when the Omicron variant was dominant. Additionally, new findings suggest patients with COVID-19 may have an increased risk of rare vision-threatening blood clots in the eye for months afterward.

Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 500 million on April 14, according to a Reuters tally, as the highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron surges in many countries in Europe and Asia.

The United States on April 13 renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency, allowing millions of Americans to keep getting free tests, vaccines and treatments for at least three more months.

Life expectancy in the United States fell by nearly two years in 2020 to about 77 years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the sharpest drop compared to 21 other high-income countries, according to a global study.

Ferrero on April 12 asked U.S. consumers to dispose of some Kinder chocolate products not authorized for distribution in the country, warning they could be from the batch recently recalled in Europe due to a potential Salmonella Typhimurium contamination.

The BA.2 Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus is responsible for 86% of U.S. COVID-19 cases and more than 90% of infections in the Northeast, according to data on April 12 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).