By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Health Organization, at the heart of the world s slow and stuttering handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, faces a potential shake-up aimed at preventing future outbreaks from destroying lives and livelihoods. Health ministers agreed on Monday to study recommendations for ambitious reforms made by independent experts to strengthen the capacity of both the U.N. agency and countries to contain new pathogens. Under the resolution submitted by the European Union, and adopted by consensus, member states are to be firmly in the driver s seat of the reforms through a year-long process. The new virus has infected more than 170 million people and killed nearly 3.7 million, according to a Reuters tally of official national figures. Health ministers from WHO s 194 member states will also meet from Nov. 29 to decide whether to launch negotiations on an international treaty aimed at boosting defences against any future pandemic. WHO s emergencies direct
MADRID (Reuters) -Spain is considering easing rules on wearing face masks outdoors, as early as in mid-June, officials said on Monday, as falling transmission and rising vaccination rates have lowered the risk of COVID-19 infection. Masks have been mandatory indoors and out across most of Spain, regardless of social-distancing, since last summer. But daily case numbers and the nationwide infection rate have been declining for months and nearly 40% of the population has received at least one vaccine shot, prompting some authorities to reconsider the rules. After the capital Madrid and the central region of Castilla la Mancha said they were considering easing restrictions, Spain s health emergency chief Fernando Simon said wearing masks outdoors might not be needed in the near future. If the (situation) evolves as it is currently doing . I believe it could be feasible that the mask would not be needed in outdoor open spaces in mid or late June and very likely, almost with (absolute) cert
By Marcelo Rochabrun and Marco Aquino LIMA (Reuters) -Peru on Monday almost tripled its official COVID-19 death toll to 180,764, following a government review, making it the country with the worst death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Peru has been among the hardest hit Latin America countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, with its hospitals overcrowded with patients and demand for oxygen outstripping availability. Experts had long warned that the true death toll was being undercounted in official statistics. The government said it will now update its death count, which stood at 69,342 as of Sunday, in part because of a lack of testing that made it difficult to confirm whether a person had died due to the virus or some other cause. According to Johns Hopkins data https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality, Hungary had the worst number of per capita COVID-19 deaths at about 300 per 100,000 people. With its updated death toll, Peru now stands at more than 500