Reuters Health News Summary

The company said on Tuesday it had signed a second set of deals with authorities in the United states backing its development of a monoclonal antibody treatment against the coronavirus.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Special Report: COVID deepens the other opioid crisis - a shortage of hospital painkillers

As opioid pills and patches fueled a two-decade epidemic of overdoses in the United States, hospitals faced chronic shortages of the same painkillers in injectable form - narcotics vital to patients on breathing machines. For years, hospitals chased supplies, sometimes resorting to inferior substitutes. The shortfall grew so dire in 2018 that a drugmaker sent letters advising hospitals they could use batches of opioid syringes potentially containing hazardous contaminants - so long as they filtered each dose. Coronavirus may have spread in Wuhan in August, Harvard research shows, but China dismissive

The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous". The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea". UK COVID-19 death toll nears 52,000, Reuters tally shows

The United Kingdom's COVID-19 death toll neared 52,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of official data sources that highlighted the country's place as one of the worst hit in the world. New data for England and Wales brought the toll to 51,766, the highest in Europe and putting the UK behind only the much larger United States in a pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 people around the world. Explainer: What are antibody therapies and who is developing them for COVID-19?

While some potential vaccines have emerged in the global race to find a way to stop the spread of COVID-19, many scientists and researchers believe antibody based therapies hold great promise for treating people already infected with the disease. HOW DO ANTIBODY THERAPIES WORK? Billions in COVID relief go to biggest hospital chains as smaller rivals await aid

Spared the worst of COVID-19, the largest for-profit hospital chains in the United States are pursuing a speedy recovery backed by billions of dollars in federal aid, while other hospitals say they have been harder hit and left wanting. HCA Healthcare Inc, the biggest chain, has received $5.3 billion in loans and grants thus far from the federal government to offset lost business and higher expenses from the coronavirus pandemic. Tenet Healthcare Corp, the second-largest chain by revenue and beds, has disclosed more than $2 billion in similar loans and grants. Russia's coronavirus cases pass 485,000

Russia reported 8,595 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing the number of infections nationwide to 485,253. The authorities said that 171 people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 6,142. AstraZeneca wins fresh U.S. backing in race for COVID-19 treatment

AstraZeneca has secured support from the U.S. government to advance the development of antibody-based COVID-19 treatments as the British drugmaker ramps up efforts beyond its potential vaccine to combat the global health crisis. The company said on Tuesday it had signed a second set of deals with authorities in the United states backing its development of a monoclonal antibody treatment against the coronavirus. Delhi coronavirus cases set to explode, hospitals running out of beds

Delhi's infections of coronavirus will climb to more than half a million by the end of July and it does not have the hospital capacity to handle such an outbreak, the city state's deputy chief minister said on Tuesday. The warning came as harrowing accounts of people struggling to get a hospital bed in the Indian capital emerged, including some who said their loved ones died on the doorsteps of medical centers which refused to take them in. U.S. coronavirus cases surge in southwestern states

Twenty-one U.S. states reported weekly increases in new cases of COVID-19, with Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posting rises of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis. The three southwestern states joined hot spots in the South to help push the national number of new infections in the first week of June up 3%, the first increase after five weeks of declines, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak. Gilead's remdesivir shows promise in COVID-19 study on monkeys

Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug, remdesivir, prevented lung disease in macaque monkeys infected with the new coronavirus, a study published in medical journal Nature showed on Tuesday. Remdesivir is the first drug to show improvement in COVID-19 in human trials, and its progress in clinical studies is being closely watched as nations look for a treatment for the disease, which has infected more than 7 million people and killed over 400,000.