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Mers virus

Mers virus
The Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) has killed more than 800 people since 2012.
Researchers hope that this type of vaccine could one day help fend off future pandemics. Photo illustration: Shutterstock
Medicine

First AI-designed ‘universal vaccine’ tested in humans

The experimental jab is intended to target a wide range of viruses, including those behind deadly outbreaks like Sars, Mers and Covid-19.

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Medicine

The next pandemic? WHO working on list of pathogens to watch

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Coronavirus pandemic

Co-inventor of mRNA shots works on vaccine against all coronaviruses

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Coronavirus pandemic

Taiwanese air passengers warned over use of ‘Wuhan coronavirus’ on travel papers

Health certificates that use the phrase ‘will be deemed void’ and may result in passengers being refused entry on arrival, flag carrier says.

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Air China has warned Taiwanese travellers that the phrase “Wuhan coronavirus” could invalidate their test result certificates. Photo: Shutterstock
Coronavirus pandemic

WHO gears up for main mission into China to hunt for Covid-19 origins

International team led by WHO experts will examine the first cases identified in Wuhan to try to track the animal source of the virus.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Trump owes us an apology over coronavirus claims, Wuhan bat expert says

Shi Zhengli tells Science magazine that US President should say sorry for linking the research institute to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Coronavirus China

Call for ‘quantum leap’ in bat virus research to avoid new pandemic

Warnings about the risks of bat coronaviruses causing human disease have gone unheeded for years and ‘our prolonged deafness now exacts a tragic price’, top scientists write in journal article.

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An electron microscope image shows the new coronavirus in yellow, emerging from the surface of cells. The virus is believed to have passed into humans from bats, possibly through an intermediary animal. Photo: EPA-EFE
Coronavirus pandemic

China confirms unauthorised labs were told to destroy early virus samples

Responding to claims by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national health authority says this was done for biosafety reasons and to ‘prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens’.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Rare syndrome tied to Covid-19 kills three children in New York

Cuomo told a daily briefing that he was increasingly worried about a syndrome that shares symptoms with toxic shock and Kawasaki disease.

Coronavirus pandemic

Synthetic coronavirus created from brewer’s yeast gives research options

Man-made strains will bridge the gap between the real-life virus and computer modelling, scientist says.

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A transmission electron micrograph image of Sars-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Photo: EPA-EFE/NIAID/National Institutes of Health handout
Coronavirus pandemic

‘Keep an eye on animals’: mink at Dutch farms test positive for virus

Outbreak highlights need to monitor spread of coronavirus in animals to understand risks, experts say.

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A mink farm at Beek en Donk in the Netherlands is one of two that have been quarantined after animals were infected with the coronavirus. Photo: EPA-EFE
Climate change

Opinion | How China and Britain can lead biodiversity, climate debate in Covid-19 era

Two top conventions on biodiversity and climate change have been postponed but for respective hosts China and Britain, now is the time to lead the global discussion on conservation, linking up pandemics, public health and the environment.

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Coronavirus pandemic

China ‘leads world in coronavirus research’, followed by United States

Nearly 300 clinical studies are under way in 39 countries and regions in search for an effective treatment for Covid-19.

Coronavirus pandemic

Mass lockdowns in Europe may have helped save 59,000 lives

Researchers from Imperial College in London looked at how 11 countries had responded to the crisis and estimated how many lives had been saved by intervention.

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Empty streets outside the Colosseum in Rome. Photo: AFP
World Health Organization (WHO)

Letters | WHO has played by the book on Covid-19, not to favour China

Not associating Wuhan with the virus in the naming of Covid-19 follows WHO best practice for naming diseases. Likewise, its travel recommendations are also consistent with its own guidelines, and in no way favour China.

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A woman wearing a face mask walks on a street in Wuhan, on April 2. The central Chinese city reopened on March 28 after more than two months of near-total isolation for its population of 11 million. Photo: AFP
Coronavirus pandemic

Middle-aged people ‘at greater risk of dying from Covid-19, just like elderly’

New comprehensive analysis of virus cases in mainland China showed that age was a key determining factor in serious infections.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Trump zigs, zags and zigs again on China and the coronavirus

The US president has adopted a cooperative tone on the pandemic after a phone call with his Chinese counterpart.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Opinion | Asia has gained some perspective on Covid-19. Europe, US should too

Western governments should be framing a message of caution, not cancelling events, shutting everything down and feeding panic. If markets collapse, poverty will kill more people than the coronavirus.

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A boy reaches for the spring flower buds at the Summer Palace in Beijing, on March 11, as tourist attractions reopen in China. We now know that Covid-19, while serious, is nowhere near as bad as Sars, Mers or Ebola. Photo: Simon Song
Coronavirus pandemic

First coronavirus autopsy highlights how illness targets lungs

The first published postmortem results found Sars-like lesions on the lungs of an 85-year-old from Wuhan.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Opinion | What we learned from Sars stands us in good stead to curb Covid-19

Far from a gloomy observation, the fact Covid-19 behaves like Sars should give us hope. After all, we now know about how coronavirus infections cluster, where the hotspots are, and what public health measures are likely to prove effective.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Man killed by coronavirus ‘had organ damage similar to that caused by Sars’

Pathological features of Covid-19 greatly resemble those seen in Sars and Mers, say researchers in Beijing, who used samples from 50-year-old.

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Medical workers attend to a patient in Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Reuters
Coronavirus pandemic

China reports 1,300 more coronavirus cases among medical workers

Another Wuhan doctor says she was silenced after raising concerns about human-to-human transmission.

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Medical workers try to lift their spirits by cheering for each other before entering a temporary hospital set up at Wuhan Sports Centre in Wuhan, Hubei province. Photo: Xinhua
Coronavirus pandemic

‘Politics at play’ in US role in WHO coronavirus team to China

American health specialists offering to take part in the international mission ‘have not been invited’

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Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus ‘could cut China’s purchases of US goods’ under trade deal

Containing the virus and assessing its economic impact are the priorities, observers say after US adviser predicts fall in agricultural products Beijing buys.

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Coronavirus pandemic

Letters | Hong Kong workplaces need to update pandemic preparedness

Despite hard lessons learned from Sars in 2003, many Hong Kong organisations and educational institutions remain unaware of the need to devise guidelines for facing an epidemic of such a scale.

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Commuters wear face masks as they ride an escalator at an MTR station on January 23. Photo: AFP
Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus on track to kill more people than Sars, experts say

The new contagion may be far less deadly than severe acute respiratory syndrome but it has already infected more than four times as many people.

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The new coronavirus is less deadly than Sars but has affected far more people. Photo: Xinhua
Coronavirus pandemic

Opinion | Are we overreacting to the coronavirus threat and fuelling fear not facts?

For a coronavirus with a lower fatality rate than peak flu season in the US, millions are quarantined, borders are closed, flights are cut, and economic and political costs are mounting. With human rights swept aside and public health politicised, are we creating more problems than we hope to solve?

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Coronavirus pandemic

WHO chief calls for caution on coronavirus trade and travel bans

Beijing accuses Washington of spreading fear and setting a bad example for other countries with its response to the outbreak.

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