Health News Roundup: Betting big on drug discovery, UK's OMass Therapeutics raises $100 million; Congo starts Ebola vaccinations to stem the outbreak in the northwest, WHO says and more

The city, battling China's biggest ever coronavirus outbreak, saw new asymptomatic cases fall to 9,330 on April 27, down 22% from a day earlier and its lowest rate in 24 days, with symptomatic infections also down by almost a fifth. COVID-hit Beijing increases curbs, fears Shanghai-like misery The Chinese capital of Beijing closed some public spaces and stepped up checks at others on Thursday, as most of the city's 22 million residents embarked on more COVID-19 mass testing aimed at averting a Shanghai-like lockdown.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Betting big on drug discovery, UK's OMass Therapeutics raises $100 million

Betting on a fresh formula for the arduous, expensive, and failure-prone field of drug discovery, UK-based OMass Therapeutics on Thursday said it has raised $100 million in series B funding. Including the latest injection - led by a pack of prominent new investors including the Google Ventures and Sanofi Ventures as well as existing investors such as Syncona and Oxford Science Enterprises - OMass has raised over $150 million since its inception in 2016.

Congo starts Ebola vaccinations to stem the outbreak in the northwest, WHO says

The Democratic Republic of Congo has kicked off Ebola vaccinations to stem an outbreak in the northwest city of Mbandaka, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Two people are known to have died so far in the city of over one million inhabitants where people live in close proximity to the road, water, and air links to the capital Kinshasa.

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UK's transfer of old patients to care homes during the pandemic was unlawful - court

Britain's government acted unlawfully early in the COVID-19 pandemic when it moved elderly patients from hospitals to care homes without considering that people without symptoms could spread the virus, a court found on Wednesday. Britain's coronavirus death toll soared during early 2020, outstripping its European peers, boosted by the deaths of elderly people, many of whom had been moved out of the hospital into residential care to make room for COVID patients.

Measles cases jump 79% in 2022 after COVID hit vaccination campaigns

Measles cases jumped by 79% in the first two months of this year compared to 2021, after COVID-19 and lockdowns disrupted child vaccination campaigns around the world, according to data from UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). In January and February, there were 17,338 measles cases reported worldwide, up from 9,665 in the same period last year.

Malaysia to lift more COVID curbs eases mask mandate

Malaysia will ease more COVID-19 curbs from the start of next month, including lifting restrictions on those who are not vaccinated against the coronavirus and scrapping the need to wear masks outdoors, its health minister said. The Southeast Asian nation has seen some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the region, but infection surges have since subsided amid a ramped-up vaccination program.

EU estimates up to 80% of the population has had COVID

The European Commission said that between 60% and 80% of the EU population was estimated to have been infected with COVID-19, as the bloc enters a post-emergency phase in which mass reporting of cases was no longer necessary. In preparing for this less acute phase, European Union governments should ramp up COVID-19 immunizations of children, the bloc's executive body said, signaling it was considering plans to develop antivirals.

Shanghai's focus shifts to vaccination of the elderly as new cases decline

The COVID-hit city of Shanghai is making more resources available to improve vaccination rates among the elderly as daily case numbers decline and it looks for a way out of four weeks of stringent lockdown restrictions. The city, battling China's biggest-ever coronavirus outbreak, saw new asymptomatic cases fall to 9,330 on April 27, down 22% from a day earlier and its lowest rate in 24 days, with symptomatic infections, also down by almost a fifth.

COVID-hit Beijing increases curbs, fears Shanghai-like misery

The Chinese capital of Beijing closed some public spaces and stepped up checks at others on Thursday, as most of the city's 22 million residents embarked on more COVID-19 mass testing aimed at averting a Shanghai-like lockdown. As Beijing rolled out three rounds of mass testing this week across a number of districts, it locked down a number of residential compounds, office blocks and a university after infections were found. Some schools, entertainment venues and tourist sites were also shut.

As U.S. abortion access wanes, this doctor travels to fill a void

Inside Planned Parenthood's Birmingham, Alabama, clinic, a quiet space with few windows and stock photos of the city lining the walls, a woman tapped her hand against her stomach as Dr. Shelly Tien performed a surgical abortion. Tien, 40, had flown to Birmingham the day before, and she would return home to Jacksonville, Florida, that night. A week earlier, she performed abortions at a clinic in Oklahoma. She's among an estimated 50 doctors who travel across state lines, according to the National Abortion Federation, to provide abortions in places with limited abortion access.