Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. CVS Health to open last of 1,000 drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites

CVS Health Corp said on Thursday it would open more COVID-19 testing sites at some of its pharmacy drive-thru locations, completing the last leg of the drugstore chain's planned 1,000 sites across more than 30 U.S. states. Health authorities have been emphasizing the need to expand testing capacity as the United States attempts to recover from the respiratory illness that has killed over 100,000 people in the country, according to a Reuters tally. Indonesia to keep prescribing two malaria drugs for COVID-19 despite bans in Europe

Indonesia will continue to prescribe two anti-malaria drugs for coronavirus patients but monitor their use closely, a spokesman for Indonesia COVID-19 taskforce said on Thursday, after some European nations banned the drug over safety concerns. The world’s fourth-most populous nation has since late March recommended that chloroquine and its derivative, hydroxychloroquine, be widely administered, including to coronavirus patients with moderate to severe symptoms, according to Food and Drug Monitoring Agency guidelines. Coronavirus patients flood hospitals in Indonesia's second-largest city

Hospitals in Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya have been overwhelmed by a surge of new coronavirus cases, forcing them to turn patients away, the Indonesian Medical Association said on Thursday. At least two city hospitals designated to treat the disease in East Java province have been inundated with patients amid fears the virus could spread rapidly beyond its epicentre in the capital Jakarta to elsewhere in the country of 270 million. WHO official: European deaths spike since March linked to COVID-19

About 159,000 more people in 24 European countries have died since early March than would have ordinarily been expected, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday, with a "significant proportion" of the spike linked to COVID-19. So far, more than 2 million people in Europe have been sickened by the new coronavirus, up 15% over the past two weeks, with Russia, Turkey, Belarus and Britain leading the way in new infections, WHO European officials said on a call. More than 175,000 people have died. LabCorp ties up with software provider to expand virtual clinical trials

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) said on Thursday it was partnering with software provider Medable to speed up the adoption of virtual clinical trials, as many participants are dropping out of ongoing studies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Medable's modular software platform will help patients registered with LabCorp's drug development unit Covance to participate in decentralized clinical trials and facilitate remote data collection and engagement between patients, sites and clinical investigators. Exclusive: GSK says science does not link pandemic H1N1 flu vaccine to sleep disorder

British drugmaker GSK said on Thursday that its previous flu pandemic vaccine, which used some of the same ingredients as COVID-19 vaccines currently under development, was not linked to a rise in cases of the sleep disorder narcolepsy. A spokesman for GSK said the "science has moved on" since concerns were raised about links between narcolepsy and its H1N1 vaccine, called Pandemrix, which was developed during the flu pandemic 10 years ago. He said evidence now suggests the link is to the H1N1 flu virus itself, not the vaccine. GSK aims for one billion doses of booster as COVID-19 vaccine race heats up

GSK, the world's largest vaccine maker, laid out plans on Thursday to produce 1 billion doses of vaccine efficacy boosters for COVID-19 shots next year, as the race to develop a successful solution to the coronavirus crisis heats up. The British drugmaker said it was in talks with governments to back the manufacturing expansion of the boosters, or adjuvants, that would help to scale up production of future vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. EU plans permanent stockpile of essential drugs, medical gear

The European Commission said on Thursday it wanted to set up a permanent reserve of essential drugs and medical equipment to address shortages that have dogged the EU for years and worsened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The stockpile would be funded from a new health budget worth 9.4 billion euros ($10.3 billion) which the EU executive commission proposed on Wednesday. Oxford BioMedica inks deal to make AstraZeneca's potential COVID-19 vaccine

Britain's Oxford BioMedica has agreed with AstraZeneca to manufacture the drugmaker's experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the cell therapy company said on Thursday. Oxford BioMedica will provide the drugmaker withmultiple batches of the vaccine, called AZD1222, under a one-year clinical and commercial supply agreement, the company said, adding that the majority of it is expected be produced throughout 2020. Africa hit by sustained community spread of coronavirus: disease centre

Cases of community transmission of the new coronavirus are growing in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, and a new strategy for testing is needed to prevent this, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. Community transmission refers to cases where patients had no travel history or known contact with infected people - worrying for health workers because it means the virus is moving undetected through the population.