The World Bank announced Thursday it will put $34 million into a program to provide coronavirus vaccines for more than two million people in Lebanon, which is experiencing a major surge in Covid-19 cases.

A coronavirus variant that emerged in England has swept through more than 60 nations including China, officials confirmed on Wednesday, as Joe Biden warned during his inauguration as U.S. president the deadliest phase of the contagion was yet to come.

The government of Dubai on Wednesday ordered all hospitals to cancel nonessential surgeries for the next month as coronavirus infections surge to unprecedented heights in the United Arab Emirates.

In a circular sent to government-run and private health centers across the emirate, Dubai's Health Authority announced that starting Thursday medical operations "may be allowed to continue only per medical urgency" as the city tries to keep its hospitals from becoming overrun.

Turkey has vaccinated more than one million people against the novel coronavirus in the first week of a national inoculation drive, according to health ministry figures issued Wednesday.

The UK coronavirus strain has been detected in at least 60 countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, 10 more than a week ago.

The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge.

The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and health officials say the high rate of new cases is the main reason. Each new infection gives the virus a chance to mutate as it makes copies of itself, threatening to undo the progress made so far to control the pandemic.

Belgium on Monday prepared to fight the spread of the British variant of the coronavirus after outbreak reports in schools and retirement homes of the strain believed to be more infectious.

Disneyland Paris, Europe's biggest tourist attraction, said Monday it now expects to reopen on April 2, seven weeks later than planned, because of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

India on Monday stepped up efforts to bolster trust in coronavirus vaccines after it was revealed that nearly a third of those invited to get jabs at the launch of a nationwide drive failed to turn up.

The world is on the "brink of a catastrophic moral failure" if rich countries hog Covid-19 vaccine doses while the poorest suffer, the head of the WHO said Monday.