Health News Roundup: CDC head warns pregnant women with COVID-19; Egypt's Eva Pharma begins producing COVID-19 and more

CDC head warns pregnant women with COVID-19 face greater risks Pregnant women have increased risk of severe COVID-19 compared to women who are not pregnant, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention Robert Redfield told reporters on Thursday, warning that states with rising coronavirus cases need to take action.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

CDC head warns pregnant women with COVID-19 face greater risks

Pregnant women have increased risk of severe COVID-19 compared to women who are not pregnant, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention Robert Redfield told reporters on Thursday, warning that states with rising coronavirus cases need to take action. The CDC has found that pregnant women are more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit and to be put on mechanical ventilators than non-pregnant women, he said.

Egypt's Eva Pharma begins producing COVID-19 drug Remdesivir

Egypt's Eva Pharma said on Thursday it had begun producing Remdesivir and Favipiravir, two drugs used in the treatment of patients with COVID-19. Remdesivir is indicated for moderate to severe cases of COVID-19 for patients in intensive care who require oxygen, while Favipiravir is indicated for mild to moderate cases.

Coronavirus may have infected 10 times more Americans than reported, CDC says

Government experts believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts, indicating many people without symptoms have or have had the disease, senior administration officials said. The estimate, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is based on serology testing used to determine the presence of antibodies that show whether an individual has had the disease, the officials said.

Texas, at center of new U.S. coronavirus surge, pauses reopening

The governor of Texas temporarily halted the state's reopening on Thursday as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations surged in the state and new daily cases around the country climbed to a near-record high. Texas, which has been at the forefront of efforts to reopen devastated economies shut down in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, has seen one of the biggest jumps in new cases, reporting over 6,000 in a single day on Monday.

Vaccine makers face biggest medical manufacturing challenge in history

Developing a COVID-19 vaccine in record time will be tough. Producing enough to end the pandemic will be the biggest medical manufacturing feat in history. That work is underway.

U.S. watchdog finds flaws in virus testing data, chews out Transport Dept, SBA

A U.S. government watchdog gave a blunt review of the shortcomings in the government's response to the pandemic on Thursday that included the sending of nearly $1.4 billion to deceased Americans, and the collection of incomplete and inconsistent virus-testing data. The report issued by the Government Accountability Office marked the first review of the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic and made recommendations to lawmakers how to improve the fight to come out of the crisis.

Colombia's first COVID-19 death occurred earlier than previously thought: government

Colombia's first confirmed death from COVID-19 occurred in late February, more than a week before the Andean country originally reported its first case of the coronavirus, the government's statistics agency said Thursday. The country had reported its first case on March 6 and what was thought to be its first death - that of a 58-year-old taxi driver in the Caribbean city of Cartagena - on March 21.

Many studies of COVID-19 antibody test accuracy fall short: review

Many studies assessing the accuracy of COVID-19 antibody tests had major shortcomings, a review released on Thursday concluded, offering further evidence the blood tests are of little use for people seeking to know with certainty if they have been infected. Cochrane, a British-based journal that reviews research evidence to help decision makers adopt better health policies, looked at 54 studies, mostly from Asia, that sought to measure the reliability of tests purporting to show whether somebody has developed antibodies against the new coronavirus.

Coronavirus pandemic getting worse globally: WHO head Tedros

The COVID-19 pandemic is subsiding in Europe, but getting worse globally with the number of infections expected to reach 10 million next week and the number of deaths 500,000, the head of the World Health Organisation Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Speaking via video-conference with members of the European Parliament's health committee, Tedros said that once the pandemic was over, the world should not return to its previous state, but build a "new normal" that would be fairer, greener and help prevent climate change.

Congo announces end of Ebola outbreak in east, second deadliest on record

The second-largest Ebola outbreak on record is over after nearly two years and more than 2,200 deaths, Democratic Republic of Congo said on Thursday, even as a separate flare-up of the virus continued on the other side of the country. Despite effective vaccines and treatments that dramatically boosted survival rates, the outbreak dragged on as first responders struggled to gain access to virus hotspots in Congo's restive east.