Switzerland

GENEVA, August 11. /TASS/: Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is currently going through legal procedures to secure an approval of the World Health Organization (WHO), WHO Assistant Director General Mariangela Simao told a briefing on Wednesday.

"As for Sputnik, the process is ongoing, we have some legal procedures undergoing at the moment." she noted.

GENEVA, Aug 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Guinea confirmed a case of Marburg disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday, the first recorded in West Africa of the lethal virus that’s related to Ebola and, like Covid-19, passed from animal hosts to humans.

The virus, which is carried by bats and has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent, was found in samples taken from a patient who died on Aug 2 in southern Gueckedou prefecture, the WHO said.

GENEVA, Aug 07 (APP): A reputed Bangkok-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has called on India to end human rights violations in occupied Jammu & Kashmir, echoing growing global concerns over the “Domicile Rules”, introduced last year, that have enabled non-Kashmiris to obtain permanent residency and jobs in the UN-recognized disputed region.

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization called Wednesday for a moratorium on administering booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines as a way to help ensure that doses are available in countries where few people have received their first shots.

Aug 4 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization is calling for a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters until at least the end of September, its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

The move was to enable that at least 10% of the population of every country was vaccinated, WHO Director-General Tedros said.

The call to stop COVID-19 vaccine boosters is the strongest yet from the UN agency as the gap between inoculation rates in wealthy and poor countries widens.

GENEVA, July 30 (Reuters) - More than 100,000 children in Ethiopia's northern region of Tigray could suffer from life-threatening malnutrition in the next 12 months, a 10-fold jump over average annual levels, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado, speaking after returning from Tigray, said that one in two pregnant and breastfeeding women screened in the region were acutely malnourished, leaving them and their babies prone to sickness.

GENEVA, July 28 (Reuters) - Senior U.S. and Russian officials began talks on Wednesday on strategic nuclear stability, with a fresh mandate from their presidents who held a summit in Geneva last month.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov headed their respective delegations at the meeting at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.

GENEVA, July 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A new World Bank financing mechanism will allow developing countries to purchase Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility, it was announced.

Covax was set up to ensure 92 developing territories could access coronavirus vaccines to fight the pandemic, with the cost covered by donors.

The new mechanism will allow those countries to buy additional doses on top of the subsidised ones they will already receive via Covax.

GENEVA, July 27 (Reuters) - Some 24,000 Eritrean refugees are trapped in two camps in Ethiopia's Tigray region, cut off from humanitarian aid, and their food rations may have run out, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Appealing for access to the Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps, the U.N. refugee agency said there was "a real danger of hunger" if the refugees did not receive supplies.

GENEVA, July 22 (Reuters) - Former United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay will head an international commission of inquiry into alleged crimes committed during the latest conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, the U.N.'s Human Rights Council said in a statement on Thursday.

The council agreed in late May to open the investigation with a broad mandate to cover allegations not just in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but also in Israel during hostilities that were halted by a May 21 ceasefire.