Switzerland

GENEVA, January 1. /TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world has surpassed 81.94 million, rising by more than 470,000 in the past 24 hours. The World Health Organization (WHO) data also shows that the number of fatalities rose by more than 9,900 to exceed 1.8 million globally.

The WHO statistics only take into account the officially confirmed cases of infection and deaths provided by countries.

GENEVA, Jan 01 (APP): Pakistan has called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to push India to release Aasiya Anrabi, a detained Kashmiri rights defender and political activist, who faces an imminent risk of conviction by a “sham” court on January 18.

GENEVA, Dec 26 (NNN-TASS) — More than 655,000 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus have been recorded globally in the past day, pushing a total number of infections to 78.19 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin.

According to the WHO updates, the coronavirus-related deaths increased by over 11,500 to exceed 1.73 million.

ZURICH, Dec 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — FIFA has increased Africa’s slots at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand from three to six.

The decision was one of the major decisions the Bureau of FIFA Council took on Thursday, Dec 24, when it met to discuss the fate of upcoming FIFA competitions.

Africa in time past had three direct slots, which were given to the top three performing teams at the Africa Women’s Championship.

GENEVA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Despite a number of mutations so far of SARS-CoV-2 virus, the culprit behind the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, none of them, including the latest UK variant, has made a significant impact on the susceptibility of the virus to any of the currently used therapeutics, drugs or the vaccines under development, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

GENEVA, December 21. /TASS/: The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on states to take all possible measures to slow and then stop the spread of new, mutated types of the novel coronavirus detected in the UK and South Africa, WHO Spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic informed TASS on Monday.

"Viruses change as they circulate, and these changes can lead to changes in characteristics of the virus. Everyone must continue to take all actions to slow and eventually stop the spread of the virus," he said.

Geneva, Dec 19 (AP-PTI) The head of emergencies at the World Health Organisation says a team of international experts looking into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic will travel to China the first week of January.

Dr Michael Ryan says there will be quarantine arrangements for the team, which will visit the suspected site of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan.

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization program to help get COVID-19 vaccines to all countries in need has access to nearly 2 billion doses of “promising” vaccine candidates, officials said Friday.

None of the agreements include the vaccines by Moderna, which took one stop closer to approval in the U.S. on Thursday, or Pfizer-BioNTech, which is already in use in the U.S., Canada and Britain and nearing approval in the European Union.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights office called on Thailand on Friday to amend its lese majeste law which it said had been used against at least 35 activists - one as young as 16 - in recent weeks.

It said Thailand should stop using the law, which bans insulting the monarchy, and other serious criminal charges against protesters, saying that criminalising such acts violates freedom of expression.

United Nations, Dec 10 (PTI) More than 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as of mid-2020, with existing and new conflicts as well as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affecting their lives this year, a UN report has said.

According to its report on trends in global forced displacement released on Wednesday in Geneva, The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR estimates that global forced displacement surpassed 80 million at mid-year.