Just four in 10 people in France want to have a vaccination against Covid-19, a poll showed Tuesday, as concern also grows over the slow start to the country's immunization campaign.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,775,272 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Tuesday.

The United States began a coronavirus vaccination campaign for its troops stationed in South Korea Tuesday as a third virus wave saw the host country record its highest daily death toll since the pandemic began.

South Africa banned alcohol sales and made masks mandatory in public from Tuesday after a surge in coronavirus cases, as the World Health Organization warned that pandemics far more deadly than Covid-19 may lie ahead.

Eight care home workers in Germany were accidentally injected with five doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, local authorities said Monday -- but are suffering no serious ill effects so far.

A researcher who identified a novel coronavirus variant in Nigeria has cautioned against automatic assumptions that it poses similar risks to strains that have emerged elsewhere.

Belgium on Monday joined a growing list of countries to launch Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, while a new coronavirus variant believed to be more infectious spread further and other nations ramped up restrictions.

A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia" surfaced in the central China city.

Saudi Arabia has extended its suspension of commercial passenger flights by at least one week and possibly two amid concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus.

Members of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's security team have received a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine, officials said Monday -- the first people in the country to be officially immunized despite no regulatory approval.