<p style="text-align: justify;">Following is a summary of current health news briefs.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Rural residents worry for elderly as COVID rips across China</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In a busy village clinic in Lezhi county in southwest China’s Sichuan province on Thursday, 59-year-old Yang waited anxiously as her husband received an intravenous drip in the adjacent room. For more than a week he has had a fever, chills, a cough, and other COVID-like symptoms, she said, like millions of other Chinese caught in a coronavirus wave after authorities dismantled zero-COVID policies this month.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Mainland China reports one COVID death for Dec 30</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Dec. 30, compared with one death a day earlier, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday. The death toll has risen to 5,248.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Over 40% of U.S. COVID cases caused by Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 – CDC</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over 40% of COVID-19 cases in the United States are now caused by the highly contagious Omicron XBB.1.5, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday, with the subvariant doubling from the previous week. Although many public health experts are expressing concern about the rising COVID cases in China, infectious disease experts have been increasingly worried about the XBB.1.5 variant.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>France to impose mandatory COVID tests for travellers from China</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">France will require travellers from China to provide a negative COVID-19 test result less than 48 hours before departure, the health and transport ministries said on Friday. The test will be required on all flights from China, including flights with stopovers. Travellers on airplanes arriving from China will also have to wear masks.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>UK to require COVID negative tests for arrivals from China</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The UK said on Friday that passengers arriving in Britain from China will require a negative COVID-19 test after a surge in infections in China. Starting on Jan. 5, Chinese travellers will need to show a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than two days prior to departure, UK’s Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>WHO urges China to share specific data regularly on COVID situation</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The World Health Organization on Friday once again urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID-19 situation in the country, as it continues to assess the latest surge in infections. The agency has asked Chinese officials to share more genetic sequencing data, as well as data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Pandemic curbs linked to early start to Europe’s winter flu season</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Pandemic restrictions that hampered the circulation of viruses other than COVID-19 could be behind the unseasonably early upsurge in respiratory infections in Europe this winter that the festive break could prolong, scientists say. Apart from COVID-19, regulations to curb movement and social interaction limited the transmission of viruses that typically cause most infections during the colder, winter months, including influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Factbox-UK, France add to COVID restrictions on Chinese travellers</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Authorities around the world are imposing or considering curbs on travellers from China as COVID-19 cases in the country surge following its relaxation of "zero-COVID" rules. They cite a lack of information from China on variants and are concerned about a wave of infections. China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said it expects future mutations to be potentially more transmissible but less severe.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Exclusive-Drugmakers to raise prices on at least 350 drugs in U.S. in January</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Bristol Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca PLC and Sanofi SA plan to raise prices in the United States on more than 350 unique drugs in early January, according to data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. The increases are expected to come as the pharmaceutical industry prepares for the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allows the government’s Medicare health program to negotiate prices directly for some drugs starting in 2026. The industry is also contending with inflation and supply chain constraints that have led to higher manufacturing costs.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>EU urges more checks for COVID variants given surge in China</strong></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The European Union should consider immediately scaling up genomic sequencing of COVID-19 infections and monitoring of waste water, including from airports, to detect any new variants given the virus surge in China, the bloc’s health chief said. In a letter to health ministers of the EU’s 27 members, Stella Kyriakides said the bloc should be "very vigilant" as China lifted travel restrictions on Jan. 8 as reliable epidemiological and testing data for China were quite scarce.</p>
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