Incense burned gently in the corner of a sunlit room as South African traditional healer Makhosi Malatji fixed her smartphone into a tripod and reached for a small bag of divination bones.

Police have arrested 10 men for selling the liquor in sprawling Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

"Despite slightly diminished efficacy, the Pfizer vaccine probably protects" against the Indian variant, according to laboratory test results, said Olivier Schwartz, the institute's director and co-author of the study that was published on the BioRxiv website ahead of peer review.   

Thai police said on Sunday that they had arrested 62 men for breaching coronavirus restrictions in a raid on a gay "chemsex" party, the country's largest such crackdown during the pandemic.

The findings by a Yokohama City University research team suggest that people who were infected in the early days of the pandemic, particularly those who had mild or no symptoms, still need to be vaccinated to reduce the risk of being infected by variants from Britain, South Africa, Brazil and India.

The French on Wednesday joyfully made their way back to cafes, cinemas and museums as the country loosened restrictions in a return to semi-normality after more than six months of Covid-19 curbs.

Belgium will allow indoor drinking, dining and entertainment venues for audiences of up to 200 people to reopen from June 9.

The Marlboro maker announced in 2016 a long-term goal to stop selling cigarettes and replace them with alternatives that it says are less harmful -- but this is the first time it has given a clear deadline.

The participants underwent PCR tests two weeks after the March 27 event and "there is no sign that suggests transmission took place during the event," Josep Maria Llibre, a specialist in infectious diseases from the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital told a news conference.

Scientists said that while the research, which was based on data from a long-running survey, could not prove cause and effect, it did draw a link between sleep and dementia as people age. 

In February, Britain became the first country in the world to give the go-ahead for so-called "challenge trials" in humans, in which volunteers are deliberately exposed to COVID-19 to advance research into the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Experts have long worried about the emergence of drug resistance across the continent, which accounted for more than 90 percent of malaria deaths worldwide in 2019. 

Mounting evidence convinced many places to adopt mask-wearing recommendations and health authorities have for months said that crowded, badly ventilated indoor spaces are a particular risk. 

Despite recommendations from the WHO and European medicines watchdog to continue using the vaccine, "Denmark's vaccination campaign will go ahead without the AstraZeneca vaccine," Danish Health Authority director Soren Brostrom told a press conference.

Here is what we know about the two vaccines, which are based on the same technology. 

Its CoronaVac is one of four domestic vaccines given conditional approval by Chinese authorities, which helps rush emergency drugs to market.

Currently, the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech SE is approved for use in individuals aged 16 and older.

Scientists have been scrutinising a Noah's Ark of animals to find out whether -- and how -- the coronavirus was transmitted from bats to humans, with the prime suspect changing from one study to another.

The vaccines' high effectiveness has been confirmed in "real-world conditions" among health care personnel and other essential workers, who are more likely than the general population to be exposed to the novel coronavirus because of their occupations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The erosion between office and home boundaries during the pandemic means many white-collar workers can relate on some level to the complaints, even if the plight of elite young bankers seeking riches does not inspire sympathy.

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) share the challenges of living with the condition in a world that doesn’t yet understand them.

A monitoring board had "expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data," a statement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said.

Leading EU countries said Thursday they would resume AstraZeneca vaccinations after the European medical regulator said the jab is "safe and effective" and not associated with a higher blood clot risk after days of commotion around the shot. 

Spain's parliament passed a law legalising euthanasia on Thursday making the country one of few to allow terminally-ill or gravely-injured patients to end their own suffering.

A year after France entered uncharted territory with its first coronavirus lockdown, a small group of volunteers has embarked on a more extreme confinement: nearly six weeks underground, with no notion of time, to study the effects of acute isolation.

Surviving Covid-19 protects most people against reinfection for at least six months, but elderly patients are more likely to be laid low by the virus a second time, researchers reported Thursday.

Hailed as a cheap, easy to store not-for-profit vaccine, the AstraZeneca shot has suffered a growing number of setbacks.

American pharmaceutical companies Gilead and Merck announced Monday they have partnered to develop a new HIV therapy that could see daily medications replaced by a treatment that can be taken at longer intervals.

Russia's Sputnik V vaccine has sown division among former Eastern Bloc countries, analysts say, with some seeing it as a godsend and others as a Kremlin propaganda tool.

Difficulty breathing, concentrating and even walking: five months after being diagnosed with Covid-19, Violaine Cousineau continues to suffer severe symptoms that prevent her from resuming normal life.