Infectious diseases

The Bulgarian Food Safety Authority (BFSA) has identified two shipments of frozen chicken legs from Poland for Bulgaria contaminated with salmonella. The total quantity is 32 350 kg. The meat is banned and is not allowed to be traded on the Bulgarian market.

"There is decrease in the number of those on the respirator, severe cases. Percentage of positive findings of the number of those who are being tested drops day by day, especially in Nis and its surroundings, as well as in Jagodina, Cuprija, Aleksinac and Prokuplje, wherever we had an increased percentage compared to other areas. Belgrade is at 8 percent, 7.5 percent in the whole of Serbia.

Plans for a gradual easing of measures to contain Covid-19 will also reportedly hinge on the effort to procure about a million diagnostic tests, essential for shielding the public from a second wave of the virus in the autumn. To this end, the government is scouring the international market for test kits.

In the summer of 430 BCE, a ship from Egypt arrived in Piraeus with an uninvited guest on board: "the plague." The symptoms of this yet-to-be-identified disease - hypotheses range from typhoid fever to viral hemorrhagic fever - are described by the historian Thucydides, who was infected and survived.

There are currently 19,911 people in institutional quarantine in Romania and a further 47,139 in isolation at home and under medical monitoring, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), the official coronavirus communications task force, reported on Saturday after-noon.

As many as 22,129 people in Romania are in institutional quarantine, and another 50,702 in isolation at home and under medical supervision, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), the official coronavirus communication task force, reported on Friday at noon. So far, 85,805 COVID-19 tests have been processed nationwide.

As scientists warn that social distancing measures might have to remain in place to some degree for up to two years before natural immunity to the coronavirus has been established, government officials said on Wednesday it is too early to talk about relaxing a lockdown imposed last month.

We are experiencing what experts agree is the biggest pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It's an almost impossible combination, especially if you've just emerged from the biggest recession since World War II.

A new case of Ebola virus disease was confirmed in the city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

"While not welcome news, this is an event we anticipated. We kept response teams in Beni and other high risk areas for precisely this reason," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.  

Two more people died from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours in Greece, with overall fatalities standing at 101, Greek officials said in their daily briefing on Tuesday afternoon.

Health Ministry spokesman and infectious disease expert Sotiris Tsiodras said  the average age for the victims was 73 years.