The World Health Organization has warned that efforts to uncover the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins were being hampered by politics, insisting scientists needed space to work on solving the mystery.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will review 3,000-5,000 people above 45 years of age, of which up to 80% will be those who have taken the AstraZeneca vaccine made locally by the Serum Institute of India.

Official tolls showing the number of deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to be a “significant undercount,” the World Health Organization said yesterday, saying 6-8 million people may have died so far.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said her government would not take any advice that would cause damage to the country.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines will be forced to suspend all its flights to three destinations in Saudi Arabia from May 20 due to travel restrictions from the Gulf country, sources in Biman said.

Operation of regular international flights to and from Dhaka resumed on May 1 after a 17-day suspension due to coronavirus restrictions.

As many as 90 dead bodies of Bangladeshi expatriates have been sent home from Italy between July 2020 and April this year, according to the Bangladesh Embassy in Rome.

More than 500 health workers have died in Venezuela since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a nongovernmental organization said Monday.

The developers of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine yesterday criticised Brazil’s refusal to import the jab as politically motivated. Brazilian health regulator Anvisa on Monday denied requests from several states to receive batches of Sputnik V, saying it did not have the data needed to verify the jab’s safety and efficacy.

Negotiations were difficult and the plan got off to a slow start, but Europe’s huge post-coronavirus recovery fund may make its first payments in July.

A daily record of more than 893,000 Covid-19 cases has been recorded worldwide yesterday as US regulators said pharma giant Johnson & Johnson can restart a vaccine rollout paused due to worries over blood clots.

Oman has decided to impose a ban on passengers coming from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in the wake of rising coronavirus cases.

The global Covid-19 death toll passed three million yesterday as the pandemic continues to speed up despite vaccination campaigns, leading countries like India to impose new lockdowns to fight spiralling infection numbers.

Confusion and complacency in addressing Covid-19 means the pandemic is a long way from over, but it can be brought under control in months with proven public health measures, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday.

Two Mexican men in their 30s managed to get the coronavirus vaccine in the capital by disguising themselves as senior citizens, but were later caught, the authorities said Wednesday.

The EU’s drug regulator said yesterday that blood clots should be listed as a “very rare” side effect of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine but that the jab’s benefits continue to outweigh the risks.

A senior BBC correspondent yesterday said he had left China, after facing legal threats and pressure from authorities over his reporting on Xinjiang rights abuses and the coronavirus pandemic.

India’s Covid-19 situation is turning from “bad to worse,” a senior government official said yesterday, as infections surge across several states. “Remember if the cases are more, they will eventually overwhelm the system”, senior NITI Aayog Member Vinod Kumar Paul told a news conference.

France, Belgium and Poland yesterday tightened curbs as coronavirus cases surged in Europe while the Philippines prepared for a giant lockdown and Chile confined over 80 percent of its population.

The United Nations has urged a divided world to unite against a virus that ignores all borders, saying the pandemic could delay by a decade its goal to end global inequalities as vaccine diplomacy threatens global inoculation goal.