An aviation firm has carried out the first tests in India of longer-range drone deliveries, as hopes grow that they could deliver medicines as well as Covid-19 vaccines to remote areas.

Facemasks will no longer be compulsory outdoors in  Italy, one of the countries in Europe worst hit by the coronavirus, from June 28, the health ministry said Monday.

Cuba's Abdala coronavirus candidate vaccine showed "efficacy" of more than 92 percent after three doses, its maker said Monday, though it did not specify whether this was measured against infection, disease, or death.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan will travel at dawn Tuesday to Turkey for an official visit that will last three days, the National News Agency said.

The World Health Organization on Saturday officially announced the end of Guinea's second Ebola outbreak which was declared in February and claimed 12 lives.

Russia's capital Moscow on Saturday reported a pandemic high for new coronavirus cases for the second straight day, as the city's hospitals were flooded with new patients due to the Delta variant.

Israel will provide around one million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to the Palestinian Authority ahead of their expiry, the Israeli prime minister's office said Friday.

"Israel has signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, and will supply approximately one million doses of Pfizer vaccine that is about to expire, and will receive in return the doses that Pfizer is to send to the Palestinian Authority," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office said in a joint statement with the defence and health ministries.

Australia recommended that AstraZeneca's Covid-19 jab should not be given to people under 60 on Thursday, a fresh blow to the country's glacial vaccine rollout.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Wednesday rejected criticism of his handling of the Covid pandemic after private WhatsApp exchanges emerged in which he appeared to be described as "hopeless" by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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.