Coronavirus infects 24,000 S African health workers: Live updates | News

• • Some 24,000 health workers in South Africa have contracted the coronavirus, 181 of whom have died, according to the health ministry.

 

• • More than 18.55 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus as of Wednesday, up more than 400,000 in just one day. More than 11.1 million have recovered, while over 700,000 have died.

 

• • Amid fears of widespread coronavirus infections among voters, Sri Lankans will head to the polls on Wednesday to choose a new parliament in an election the party of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is widely expected to win.

 

• • Mexico’s health ministry has reported 6,148 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 857 additional deaths, bringing the total in the country to 449,961 cases and 48,869 deaths.

 

Here are the latest updates:

Wednesday, August 5

11:15 GMT – Third of Afghans estimated to have contracted virus: health ministry

Nearly a third of Afghanistan’s population – or 10 million people – has been infected with the coronavirus, according to health ministry estimates published on Wednesday.

The figure comes from a survey based on antibody tests on around 9,500 people across the country, with technical support from the World Health Organization, health minister Ahmad Jawad Osmani said at a press briefing.

The survey estimated that 31.5 percent of the population had contracted the virus, with the highest infection rate in Kabul where more than half of the city’s five million population were thought to have been infected.

But the country of around 32 million people has only limited testing capacity and has officially declared just 36,000 cases and more than 1,200 deaths.

“A second wave of the infection is happening everywhere in the world and we cannot be an exception. We will use the findings of this survey to better prepare ourselves for a possible second wave,” Osmani said.

10:30 GMT – Hong Kong reports 85 cases as authorities battle third wave

Hong Kong reported 85 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including three that were locally transmitted, as authorities battle to control a third wave of the outbreak which has seen a resurgence in infections over the past month.

Since late January, around 3,700 people have been infected in Hong Kong, 42 of whom have died.

10:00 GMT – Indonesia reports more than 1,800 new cases, 64 new deaths

Indonesia recorded 1,815 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the Southeast Asian country to 116,871, data by the country’s health ministry showed.

There were 64 additional deaths, taking the overall number of fatalities to 5,452, the data showed.

09:45 GMT – Russia’s coronavirus cases surpass 865,000

Russia reported 5,204 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing its nationwide tally to 866,627, the fourth largest caseload in the world.

Russia’s coronavirus taskforce said 139 people had died over the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 14,490.

09:25 GMT – Hundreds of Peru women, girls gone missing during virus lockdown

Hundreds of women and girls have gone missing and are feared dead in Peru since a lockdown was imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.

From March 16 through June 30, a total of 915 people – 606 girls and 309 women – were reported missing, according to authorities.

Last week, Peru’s women’s ministry said 1,200 women and girls had been reported missing during the pandemic – a higher figure that included the month of July.

“The figures are really quite alarming,” Isabel Ortiz, a top women’s rights official, told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

Read more here.

09:15 GMT – Philippines reports more than 3,400 new cases

The Philippines’ health ministry reported 3,462 new coronavirus infections and nine additional deaths.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total infections had risen to 115,980, putting the tally just behind Indonesia’s 116,871 cases, which is the highest in East Asia.

Coronavirus deaths in the Philippines have reached 2,123.

08:45 GMT – Coronavirus infects 24,000 South African health workers

Some 24,000 health workers in South Africa have contracted the coronavirus, 181 of whom have died, since the pandemic hit the country in March, the health minister announced on Wednesday.

South Africa is the hardest-hit country in Africa with at least 521,318 infections diagnosed so far, accounting for more than half the continent’s cases.

Health Minister Zweli Mkwize told a news conference that the numbers of health workers who tested positive for coronavirus stood at 24,104 with 181 deaths.

08:05 GMT – Gargling solution flies off Japan’s shelves after governor touts anti-virus effect

Japanese drugstores were stripped bare of gargling solution by Wednesday, a day after the governor of the western prefecture of Osaka suggested it could help fight coronavirus, triggering panicked buying reminiscent of the early days of mask shortages.

Hundreds of thousands of people posted pictures of emptied shelves on Twitter, accompanied by handwritten “Out of Stock” notices, as they canvassed suggestions on how to acquire the coveted antiseptic.

On Tuesday, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said a study showed a smaller viral load in the saliva of 41 patients with mild symptoms after regular gargling with a medicine infused with povidone-iodine solution than in those who had not.

“Perhaps we can even overcome the coronavirus with gargling medicine,” he told a mid-afternoon news conference, speaking of the study on those convalescing in regional hotels which was released by an Osaka hospital.

07:10 GMT – Indonesia’s virus-hit economy contracts for first time in two decades

Indonesia’s economy contracted in the second quarter for the first time in more than two decades as it was slammed by coronavirus restrictions, with warnings that the recovery could be among the weakest in Southeast Asia.

Output in the region’s biggest economy slumped 5.3 percent on-year in April-June, the statistics agency said.

“Economic activity in Indonesia collapsed in the second quarter,” research house Capital Economics said in note after the figures were published.

“A failure to contain the virus effectively and inadequate policy support means the recovery is likely to be one of the slowest in the region,” it added.

06:35 GMT – Ukraine reports record daily new coronavirus cases

Ukraine reported a record daily high of 1,271 new coronavirus cases on August 4, the country’s council of security and defence said on Wednesday.

The number of new infections has increased sharply in the past two months following the gradual lifting of restrictions that began in late-May.

The total number of cases rose to 75,490, including 1,788 deaths and 41,527 recovered as of August 5.

05:50 GMT – Czechs record biggest daily jump in cases since end-June

The Czech Republic reported on Wednesday its biggest daily jump in new coronavirus cases since the end of June as a recent uptick in infections stays elevated.

The central European country of 10.7 million recorded 290 new cases on Tuesday, Health Ministry data showed, bringing the total number of cases detected to 17,286. Of those, 11,812 have recovered and 383 have died of the COVID-19 illness.

05:30 GMT –

Hello, this is Hamza Mohamed in Doha taking over from my colleague Ted Regencia in Kuala Lumpur.

04:50 – Global coronavirus deaths exceed 700,000, one person dies every 15 seconds on average

The global death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 700,000 on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University and Reuters tallies, with the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico leading the rise in fatalities.

Nearly 5,900 people are dying every 24 hours from COVID-19 on average, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the past two weeks.

That equates to 247 people per hour, or one person every 15 seconds.

The United States and Latin America are the new epicenters of the pandemic and both are struggling to curb the spread of the virus.

03:45 GMT – Latin America now has world’s highest death toll

Latin America has surpassed Europe to become the region with the highest coronavirus death toll worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.

The region has now recorded more than 206,000 deaths, approximately 30 percent of the global total.

Brazil, the Latin American country most affected by the novel coronavirus, has now recorded a total of 95,819 deaths as of Tuesday. Mexico, the second-most affected country in the region, has recorded 48,869 deaths.

The spread of the pandemic has also accelerated in Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia.

03:38 GMT – US health chief to visit Taiwan

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar will visit Taiwan in coming days, making the highest level visit by a US official in 40 years in a move likely to anger China which claims the island as its own.

“Taiwan has been a model of transparency and cooperation in global health during the COVID-19 pandemic and long before it,” Azar said in a statement.

“I look forward to conveying President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s global health leadership and underscoring our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health.”

03:09 GMT – Australia’s Victoria reports deadliest day of pandemic

Australia’s second-most populous state of Victoria has reported its deadliest day of the coronavirus outbreak with 15 deaths in the last 24 hours and a record daily rise in infections.

The state reported 725 new cases compared with 439 a day earlier.

It recorded its previous one-day high of 723 cases and 13 deaths last week.

02:08 GMT – US gov’t urged to let other firms make remdesivir

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general has urged the US government to allow other companies to make Gilead Sciences’ COVID-19 treatment, remdesivir, to increase its availability and lower the price of the antiviral drug.

The coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general called on the government to act or allow states to do so, saying in a letter to US health agencies that Gilead “has not established a reasonable price” for remdesivir.

“Gilead should not profit from the pandemic and it should be pushed to do more to help more people,” the letter said.

The drugmaker is charging most US patients $3,120 per course, or $520 per vial of remdesivir.

Gilead said in a statement that the AGs were misrepresenting facts about access to remdesivir and that the regulatory actions proposed are unauthorised under these circumstances and would do nothing to speed up access.

The medicine is one of only two that have demonstrated an ability to help hospitalized COVID-19 patients in formal clinical trials.

01:39 GMT – Australia’s Queensland shuts state border

Australia’s Queensland state will close its border with New South Wales (NSW) state to hold back a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

A surge in coronavirus cases in Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city, has forced the state of Victoria to impose a night curfew, tighten restrictions on people’s movements and order most businesses to stop trading from Wednesday night.

Other states are imposing new restrictions of their own to prevent any spillover form Victoria and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has already shut her northeastern state’s border to Victorians, said travellers from NSW and the capital Canberra also would be barred from Saturday.

“We have seen that Victoria is not getting better, and we’re not going to wait for New South Wales to get worse. We need to act,” Palaszczuk said at a news conference in Brisbane.

00:45 GMT – US fraud losses near $100m

US losses from coronavirus-related fraud and identity theft have reached nearly $100m since the pandemic emerged in March, while complaints of COVID-19 scams have at least doubled in most states, a consumer protection group has said.

A report from the Socialcatfish.com, based on government data, highlighted the vast scope of a fast-growing criminal cottage industry – from phoney stimulus-check offers to shopping scams and fake cures – preying on people already distressed by the pandemic and its economic fallout.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the study found California, Florida, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania – the most populous of the 50 US states – to be the five most targeted by coronavirus scams in the country.

Together, they accounted for about a third of more than 150,000 instances of COVID-related fraud reported nationally by the Federal Trade Commission from mid-March, when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, through July, the report published on Tuesday showed.

---

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives.

For all the key coronavirus-related developments from yesterday, August 4, click here.