Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus, has been hospitalised "as a precaution", a statement from his entourage said Friday.

France's education minister on Friday said 22 schools have had to shut on French territory due to the coronavirus since pupils returned to school this week, emphasising that over half of these were in the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion.

Brazil surpassed four million coronavirus cases on Thursday, as an international panel looking into the global response to the pandemic vowed to uncover how it was able to spread worldwide.

Can I get the coronavirus twice?

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to take a heavy toll on funding for innovation and may well accelerate the shift in research towards Asia, the United Nations said Wednesday.

Over a three-decade military career, Israeli Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin has led commando raids, fought in wars and even earned a degree at Harvard. But he has never seen anything quite like his latest mission.

As head of the Israeli army's Home Front Command, Gordin is now overseeing the military's coronavirus "task force," formed last month to bring one of the developed world's worst outbreaks under control. Its main responsibility is taking the lead in contact tracing and breaking chains of infection.

People who eat a lot of industrially processed junk food are more likely to exhibit a change in their chromosomes linked to ageing, according to research presented Tuesday at an online medical conference.

The United States neared six million coronavirus cases on Sunday, nearly a quarter of the planet's total, as nations around the world battle to contain the raging pandemic.

Thousands of tearful Shiite pilgrims wearing gloves and face masks  flooded Iraq's holy city of Karbala Sunday to mark Ashura, one of the largest Muslim gatherings since the Covid-19 pandemic started.

Ashura, on the 10th day of the mourning month of Muharram, commemorates the killing of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson Hussein at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD -- the defining moment of Islam's confessional schism.

India on Sunday set a coronavirus record when it reported 78,761 new infections in 24 hours -- the world's highest single-day rise -- even as it continued to open up the economy.