Robots began handing out bottles of sacred water in Mecca this week in preparation for a socially distanced Hajj pilgrimage in Islam's holiest city, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The mayor of Moscow on Wednesday ordered mandatory vaccinations for residents of the Russian capital working in the service industry, citing a "dramatic" rise in coronavirus infections.

People suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease could benefit long-term from continuous delivery of medication through a device similar to an insulin pump, a recent French study found.

The US death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday, although officials hailed progress towards a return to normality as its world-leading vaccination program promised to turn the page on one of the worst health crises in American history.

Germany could soon begin easing rules on mask-wearing as the country enjoys a sharp drop in Covid-19 infections, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Monday.

Lebanon administered more than 40,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a weekend inoculation drive to contain the Covid pandemic.

G7 leaders on Sunday vowed to start delivering one billion doses of Covid vaccines and to step up action on climate change, in a summit call to arms by a revived democratic alliance that also confronted China and Russia.

Paris police said Sunday that three people were detained after officers used tear gas to disperse hundreds of youths gathered for a street party in defiance of Covid social distancing limits and an 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) curfew.

A top official in the European Medicines Agency said it might be worth abandoning AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine for all age groups where alternatives are available, in an interview published Sunday.

The US Food and Drug Administration said Friday it had told Johnson & Johnson that millions of doses of Covid vaccine produced at a troubled plant can't be used because of possible contamination issues.