Malaysia today provided more than half a million AstraZeneca vaccines to Bangladesh as a gesture of solidarity and support in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic.

Australia's medicine regulator on Sunday provisionally approved the Pfizer Inc coronavirus vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11, with the health minister saying the rollout could begin from January 10.

Six different Covid-19 vaccines administered as booster doses are safe and elicit strong immune response among people who earlier received both doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines, according to a study published in the UK medical journal The Lancet.

The United States reported its first known case of community transmission of Omicron on Thursday hours before President Joe Biden was due to lay out his strategy to fight the coronavirus in the winter as the highly contagious variant spread across the globe.

It could take weeks before we can understand its impact.

Moderna Inc could have a COVID-19 booster shot targeting the Omicron variant tested and ready to file for US authorization as soon as March, the company's president said on Wednesday.

On Friday, November 19, Raquel Viana, Head of Science at one of South Africa's biggest private testing labs, sequenced the genes on eight coronavirus samples - and got the shock of her life.

BioNTech and Pfizer's established Covid-19 vaccine will likely offer strong protection against any severe disease from the new Omicron virus variant, BioNTech's Chief Executive told Reuters.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern on Tuesday that some states are introducing blanket measures aimed at the Omicron coronavirus variant that he said were “not evidence-based or effective on their own” and were penalising southern African countries that reported the strain so quickly.

New findings about the coronavirus's omicron variant made it clear Tuesday that the emerging threat slipped into countries well before their defenses were up, as two distant nations announced their first cases and a third reported its presence before South African officials sounded the alarm.

The government of France has provided 20.6 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Bangladesh.

The government will administer Covid-19 booster doses to senior citizens (aged 60 and above), but the date for the campaign has not yet been decided, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said today.

The government is considering a “no vaccine, no service” campaign at all public offices to encourage people to get vaccinated, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said today after an inter-ministerial meeting.

Drugmaker Moderna set off fresh alarm bells in financial markets on Tuesday as the firm's chief warned that Covid-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant as they have been against the Delta version.

Many of the world’s richest countries have spent the past year hoarding coronavirus vaccines, buying up enough doses to vaccinate their populations several times over and consistently failing to deliver on their promises to share doses with the developing world. The World Health Organization said the approach was “self-defeating” and “immoral.”

BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are working on vaccines that specifically target Omicron in case their existing shots are not effective against the new coronavirus variant, the companies said on Monday.

With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.

Existing COVID-19 vaccines are probably effective at preventing severe disease and hospitalisation from the newly identified Omicron variant, a top South African infectious disease expert said on Monday.

A South African doctor who was one of the first to suspect a different coronavirus strain among patients said on Sunday that symptoms of the Omicron variant were so far mild and could be treated at home.

One hundred percent of the United Arab Emirates' population has received at least one dose of a vaccine against Covid-19, the health ministry has said.