Since the start of the COVID pandemic, researchers have doubled down on efforts to create patches that deliver life-saving drugs painlessly to the skin, a development that could revolutionise medicine.The technique could help save children's tears at doctors' offices, and help people who have a phobia of syringes.Beyond that, skin patches could assist with distribution efforts, because they don't have cold-chain requirements – and might even heighten vaccine efficacy.A new mous

The United States (US) on Friday authorized the Pfizer COVID vaccine for children aged five-to-11, paving the way for 28 million young Americans to soon get immunised.The decision came after a high-level medical panel advising the government this week endorsed the shots, ruling that the known benefits outweighed the risks of side-effects.The US follows only a handful of other countries including China, Chile, Cuba and the United Arab Emirates that are inoculating younger children with various

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has urged richer countries to share their vaccines with poorer ones, in an exclusive interview with the BBC.Mr Widodo said it "shouldn't be just a few countries that get all the vaccines, and some other countries get only a little".He was speaking ahead of a visit to the G20 and COP26 meetings, where he will be meeting other world leaders.Indonesia was one of the countries hardest hit by the COVID pandemic.President Jokowi - as he is popul

Laotian police have carried out Asia's biggest-ever single seizure of illegal drugs, finding more than 55 million methamphetamine pills in the back of a beer truck, a United Nations (UN) official confirmed Thursday.The Southeast Asian country has in recent years been a gateway for drug traffickers moving meth shipments out of Myanmar's troubled Shan state and into Thailand and beyond. On Wednesday, police stopped a truck carrying beer crates in Lao's northern province

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:Billions Needed For COVID Plan The World Health Organization (WHO) says its new plan to secure and deploy vaccines, tests and treatments to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and potentially prevent another five million deaths needs US$23.4 billion over the next 12 months.New Russian Records Russia reports record numbers of daily coronavirus cases and deaths – 40,096 new cases and 1,159 fatalities – as Moscow shuts down no

Billed as a chance for humanity to save itself from climate catastrophe, the United Nations (UN) COP26 summit starting Sunday will task world leaders with turning ambitions to restrain global heating into the actions needed to slash greenhouse gas emissions.With just over one-degree Celsius warming so far after 150 years of burning fossil fuels, the world is experiencing a rapid-fire onslaught of weather disasters supercharged by climate change.

President Joe Biden told Southeast Asian nations on Wednesday the United States (US) would stand with them in defending the freedom of the seas and democracy and called China's actions towards Taiwan "coercive" and a threat to peace and stability.Speaking at a virtual East Asia Summit attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Biden said Washington would start talks with partners in the Indo-Pacific about developing a regional economic framework, something critics say his regional

United States (US) drugmaker Merck & Co.

Treating high-risk COVID-19 patients with the antidepressant fluvoxamine may reduce the risk of prolonged hospitalisation by up to a third, a large-scale study showed Thursday.Authors said the research could help boost low-cost protection against severe sickness or death in countries that have yet to receive adequate vaccine doses during a grossly uneven rollout.Fluvoxamine is traditionally used to treat mental health conditions such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders and was se

Hotels, street food carts and tuk-tuks are gearing up for the return of tourists to Bangkok as Thailand prepares to re-open on 1 November to fully vaccinated visitors after 18 months of COVID travel curbs.But the steamy metropolis, the world's most-visited city before the pandemic, will take some time to get back to its pulsating, intoxicating old self, industry experts say.The coronavirus pandemic sent visitor numbers plummeting from 40 million in 2019 to just 73,000 in the first eight