Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. France accuses Apple of refusing help with 'StopCovid' app

France accused Apple on Tuesday of undermining its effort to fight the coronavirus by refusing to help make its iPhones more compatible with a planned "StopCovid" contact-tracing app. Countries are rushing to develop smartphone apps, which are seen as a way to help keep the novel coronavirus epidemic in check while reopening the economy. Britain outpaces Italy with Europe's highest official coronavirus death toll

Britain has overtaken Italy to report the highest official death toll from coronavirus in Europe with more than 32,000 deaths, figures released on Tuesday showed. The high death toll could increase political pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who waited longer than other European leaders to order a lockdown to curb the spread of the virus in March. U.S. Supreme Court to weigh overseas anti-AIDS funding restrictions

The Supreme Court on Tuesday is set to hear arguments over whether a U.S. law violates constitutional free speech rights by requiring overseas affiliates of American-based nonprofit groups that seek federal funding for HIV/AIDS relief to formally adopt a stance against prostitution and sex trafficking. The case is the second in which the nine justices will hear arguments by teleconference following Monday's debut of the call-in format prompted by the coronavirus pandemic in a trademark dispute involving hotel reservation website Booking.com. Exclusive: Bangladesh's Beximco to begin producing COVID-19 drug remdesivir - COO

One of Bangladesh largest drugmakers, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd, will start production this month of the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which has shown promise in fighting the new coronavirus, a senior company executive said on Tuesday. Remdesivir, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences, has grabbed attention as one of the most promising treatments for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 250,000 people. Ramping up COVID-19 testing earlier would have helped the UK, top advisers say

Ramping up COVID-19 testing earlier would have helped the United Kingdom by allowing it to trace the contacts of those infected with the novel coronavirus, the government's top scientific advisers told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. The United Kingdom has overtaken Italy to report the highest official death toll from coronavirus in Europe with more than 32,000 deaths, figures released on Tuesday showed. Pfizer, BioNTech set to begin U.S. coronavirus vaccine trial

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said on Tuesday they have begun delivering doses of their experimental coronavirus vaccines for initial human testing in the United States. The U.S. drugmaker and German partner said if the vaccine proves to be safe and effective in trials, it could potentially be ready for wide U.S. distribution by the end of the year, shaving several years off the typical vaccine development timeline. Call centres expose fault line in Japan's pandemic fight

Almost a month after Tokyo declared a state of emergency, dozens of call centre employees for telecom KDDI Corp still commute into their crowded office, where the fear of coronavirus infection has taken a back seat to data security. Call centres have exposed one of the fault lines in Japan's fight against the pandemic, as it takes a less forceful approach than many countries. In the past few weeks, 17 infections were confirmed at a post office call centre in the northern island of Hokkaido and 11 at a Kyoto mail-order business. Spain reports coronavirus daily death toll of 185

The daily number of coronavirus deaths registered in Spain remained below 200 on Tuesday for a third consecutive day, the country's health ministry said, as it reported 185 deaths in 24 hours. The overall coronavirus death toll in the country rose to 25,613 on Tuesday up from 25,428, the ministry said, while the overall number of diagnosed cases rose to 219,329 up from 218,011 the day before. France's early COVID-19 case may hold clues to pandemic's start

A study by French scientists which suggests a man was infected with COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before France confirmed its first cases, could be important in assessing when and where the new coronavirus emerged, experts said on Tuesday. French researchers led by Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals, retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who had tested negative for flu before COVID-19 developed into a pandemic. WHO urges countries to investigate early COVID-19 cases

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that a report that COVID-19 had emerged in December in France, sooner than previously thought, was "not surprising", and urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases. The disease later identified as COVID-19 was first reported by Chinese authorities to the WHO on 31 December and was not previously believed to have spread to Europe until January.