The Centre on Thursday warned states that hospitals and institutions not releasing salaries of healthcare workers engaged in COVID-19 duty timely could get penalised under the Disaster Management Act. Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan, in a letter written to all the state chief secretaries, said

The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday capped the rate of a coronavirus test by private laboratories at ₹2,500. An official statement said that private labs will have to provide samples for quality audit whenever required, and added, "Charging above ₹2,500 will be considered a violation

China has published the genome data from the latest COVID-19 outbreak in the capital city of Beijing, the website of state-backed National Microbiology Data Center showed on Friday. State-backed Beijing News reported that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the genome sequencing

Russia is already preparing for the new wave of coronavirus pandemic in autumn, Anna Popova, the head of Russia's consumer health watchdog, said. Popova added that she hoped the outbreak will "recede" this summer but the risks that it'll return in autumn are "fairly high".

Coronavirus cases in India have increased to 3,80,532 as the country recorded its biggest one-day jump in coronavirus infections. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 13,586 new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours. The coronavirus death toll in the

New Zealand said its defence force will oversee the country's COVID-19 quarantine facilities after two coronavirus positive women left isolation without being tested on compassionate grounds. They're New Zealand's first coronavirus cases after the country declared itself COVID-19 free on June 8. The military will

Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said the price of COVID-19 test in Delhi has been fixed at ₹2,400 based on suggestions of a committee set up by Home Minister Amit Shah. The MHA announced that tests will be done via new Rapid Antigen methodology

MSME minister Nitin Gadkari said that India has achieved a surplus in production of PPE kits and sanitizers after help by MSMEs. "Two months before, we imported PPE kits from China but today MSME industry is making 5 lakh PPE kits per day," he said.

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus today said more than 80 lakh cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the world so far. He added that 85,000 cases were reported in the first two months, while in the past two months, 60 lakh cases have been reported.

Israeli researchers said they have invented a reusable face mask that can kill the coronavirus with heat by drawing power from a phone charger. Users shouldn't wear the mask while it's plugged in and the disinfecting process takes about 30 minutes. The mask's inner layer