Health News Roundup: 47 players quarantined after COVID-19 cases; Serbia receives million doses of China's Sinopharm and more

Forty seven players quarantined after COVID-19 cases on Australian Open flights Forty-seven players have been forced into two weeks of hotel quarantine in Melbourne after three coronavirus infections were reported on two chartered flights carrying them to the year's first grand slam, the tournament organisers said on Saturday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Forty seven players quarantined after COVID-19 cases on Australian Open flights

Forty-seven players have been forced into two weeks of hotel quarantine in Melbourne after three coronavirus infections were reported on two chartered flights carrying them to the year's first grand slam, the tournament organisers said on Saturday. Two dozen players who arrived from Los Angeles entered strict hotel quarantine after an aircrew member and Australian Open participant who is not a player tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Serbia receives million doses of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine

A plane carrying one million doses of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine arrived on Saturday in Serbia, making it the first European country to receive the Chinese vaccine for mass inoculation programmes. President Aleksandar Vucic was accompanied by Beijing's ambassador to the Balkan country at Belgrade's airport as containers carrying the vaccines were unloaded from an Air Serbia plane.

Malaysia reports 4,029 new coronavirus cases, highest daily count

Malaysia reported 4,029 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the biggest daily increase recorded in the country since the start of the pandemic, bringing the total number of infections to 155,095. The health ministry also reported eight new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 594.

Retired doctors and more syringes: Biden lays out plan to get America vaccinated

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Friday said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against COVID-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he called a "dismal failure." Under Biden's plan, federal disaster-relief workers would set up thousands of vaccination centers, where retired doctors would administer shots to teachers, grocery store workers, people over 65 years old and other groups who do not currently qualify.

China says latest COVID-19 outbreak caused by imported cases

China's recent COVID-19 outbreaks in the northeast have come from travelers entering the country or contaminated frozen food imports, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Saturday. NHC Minister Ma Xiaowei made the comments at a government meeting, where he also said the virus was spreading to rural areas and that the handling of the recent situation had exposed how prevention and control measures had been relaxed.

Japan's suicides jump 16% in COVID-19 second wave after fall in first wave: study

Suicide rates in Japan have jumped in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among women and children, even though they fell in the first wave when the government offered generous handouts to people, a survey found. The July-October suicide rate rose 16% from the same period a year earlier, a stark reversal of the February-June decline of 14%, according to the study by researchers at Hong Kong University and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.

Trump administration accused of deception in pledging release of vaccine stockpile

The governors of several states accused the Trump administration on Friday of deception in pledging to immediately distribute millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses from a stockpile that the U.S. health secretary has since acknowledged does not exist. Confusion over a vaccine supply windfall that was promised to governors but failed to materialize arose as scattered shortages emerged on the frontlines of the most ambitious and complex immunization campaign in U.S. history, prompting at least one large New York healthcare system to cancel a slew of inoculation appointments.

Pakistan approves AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use

AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use in Pakistan, the health minister said on Saturday, making it the first coronavirus vaccine to get the green light for use in the South Asian country. Pakistan, which is in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus infections, has said it would procure more than a million doses of Sinopharm's vaccine, but the Chinese vaccine has not yet been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).

Greece starts COVID-19 vaccinations among the elderly

Greece kicked off COVID-19 vaccinations among the elderly on Saturday, after first inoculating tens of thousands of frontline workers to fight the spread of the coronavirus. More than 75,000 healthcare workers and nursing home residents and carers have received the shot of the vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech since Greece rolled out the plan along with other EU countries last month.

Malaysia's Top Glove reports COVID-19 outbreak at four factories

Malaysia's Top Glove Corp, the world's largest medical grade glove maker, said on Saturday some employees at four factories had tested positive for COVID-19 recently. While the company did not say how many tested positive or when it received the test results, the news comes after more than 5,000 foreign workers at Top Glove were infected late last year and one died in what became Malaysia's biggest cluster of the coronavirus.

(With inputs from agencies.)