Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Swiss death toll from coronavirus hits 197, confirmed cases top 12,000

The Swiss death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 197 people, the country's public health agency said on Friday, rising from 161 people on Thursday. The number of cases also increased to 12,161 from 10,714 on Thursday, it said. The Swiss government is due to give an update later on Friday on its efforts to halt the spread of the outbreak. Drugmaker Vertex to delay new clinical studies due to coronavirus

U.S. drugmaker Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Friday it would delay starting some clinical trials and temporarily pause enrolment in some studies, as it looks to free up hospitals to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The company, maker of drugs for cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic condition, also said it was working with trial sites to enable virtual clinic visits and home delivery of drugs for ongoing studies. Mainland China reports first local coronavirus transmission in three days

Mainland China reported its first locally transmitted coronavirus infection in three days, although cases involving travelers from overseas continued to dominate the total number of new cases. China's National Health Commission said on Friday that 55 new coronavirus cases were reported on the mainland on Thursday, with all but 1 case involving so-called imported cases. There were 67 new cases a day earlier. 'Like wartime' - Philippine doctors overwhelmed by coronavirus deluge

Private hospitals in the Philippines capital Manila have stopped accepting coronavirus patients in the face of surging numbers of sufferers and people seeking tests, the hospitals said. The Philippines has reported relatively fewer infections than many other countries in Southeast Asia, but medical experts say a lack of testing has meant that the scale of the epidemic has gone undetected. UK to use firefighters to deliver food, collect bodies in coronavirus crisis

The United Kingdom will use firefighters to help deliver food, retrieve dead bodies and drive ambulances as it braces for the looming peak of the coronavirus outbreak that has already claimed the lives of more than 22,000 people across the world. Britain initially took a strikingly modest approach to the worst health crisis since the 1918 influenza epidemic but then changed tack to impose stringent controls after projections showed a quarter of a million British people could die. New York veterans hospital, struggling with coronavirus outbreak, asked to help civilians

The Department of Veterans Affairs is struggling to provide enough staffing and equipment for former vets hospitalized with the coronavirus illness in New York City, nursing union representatives say, yet some lawmakers are pressing the agency to treat civilians as well. New York state has become the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic with more than 37,000 cases and 385 deaths, sending local and state leaders scrambling to increase hospital capacity. U.S. has most coronavirus cases in world, next wave aimed at Louisiana

The number of U.S. coronavirus infections climbed above 82,000 on Thursday, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy, as New York, New Orleans and other hot spots faced a surge in hospitalizations and looming shortages of supplies, staff and sick beds. With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200. Paris hospitals near coronavirus breaking point

A spike in coronavirus cases will put France under huge pressure in coming days, its prime minister said on Friday, after reporting its biggest daily death toll and officials fearing hospitals in and around Paris could be saturated in 48 hours. Paris and its suburbs now account for over a quarter of the 29,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in French hospitals, with almost 1,300 now in intensive care. Highlighting the disease's brutality, a 16-year-old girl with no underlying health conditions died of the virus on Thursday. Condom shortage looms after coronavirus lockdown shuts world's top producer

A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world's biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production. Malaysia's Karex Bhd makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories in the past 10 days due to a lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus. What you need to know about the coronavirus

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