BEIJING: 17 March, 2020 , TON: China has granted clinical trials on its first vaccine developed to combat the new coronavirus.

The researchers are led by Chen Wei, of China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, it said.

Russia undergo testing potential coronavirus. Russian scientists have begun to test vaccine prototypes for the new coronavirus, and will to present the most effective one by June, a laboratory chief at a state biotech institute said.

"The prototypes have been created. We are starting laboratory testing on animals, to ensure effectiveness and safety," Ilnaz Imatdinov of the Vector Institute in Siberia told the Vesti Novosibirsk television channel on Monday.

"In June we will present one or two showing the best results."

Vector Institute is a state virology and biotechnology centre in Novosibirsk, which previously worked on vaccines for the Ebola virus. The country has announced it is closing borders to all foreign nationals beginning Wednesday as part of measures to halt the spread of the virus. Takeda sees speedy approval of coronavirus. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said its plasma-derived therapy against coronavirus currently in development has the potential to be among the first approved treatments for the deadly pathogen.

The Japanese pharmaceutical company could have an edge because the treatment involves a process that already has approval from regulators. The key point in negotiations with regulators for approval is whether it has the necessary concentration of the antibody, or titer, needed to fight the Covid-19 disease, said Julie Kim, Zurich-based president of Takeda's plasma-derived therapies unit. The process to manufacture the therapy, using antibodies from recovered patients, is the same as Takeda's other immunoglobulin products, which have approval from regulatory bodies around the world including the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Kim said.

"We don't have to demonstrate safety, we just have to agree with the regulatory agencies on how to demonstrate that the titer of antibody present in the final product is sufficient to be effective against the disease," Kim told Bloomberg in a phone interview. She said the response from the FDA and European Medicines Agency would be key to the timing for approval, which could be as early as in nine months.

Takeda shares rose as much as 1.3% in afternoon trading in Tokyo, erasing an earlier drop of as much as 4.6% amid a broader market rebound.

Takeda is one of many pharmaceutical companies racing to find a treatment for the coronavirus that has swept across the globe, killing more than 7,000. The U.S. has been granting fast-track approvals for drugmakers developing therapies, and Gilead Sciences Inc. and AbbVie Inc. have emerged as front-runners for potential treatments.

A roundtable of pharmaceutical executives told U.S. President Donald Trump this month that antiviral medications could be available for patients in a matter of months. Vaccines, which would prevent healthy people from contracting the disease, are further from reaching doctors' offices and pharmacy shelves.

Baghdad, 17 March 2020, TON: Iraq's president named ex-Najaf city governor Adnan Zurfi as the new prime minister, tasked with ruling a country hit by street protests, military unrest and now the coronavirus pandemic.

The nomination came hours after two rockets hit an Iraqi military base hosting US-led coalition and NATO troops, the third such attack within a week, without causing casualties according to military officials.

Lawmaker Zurfi, 54, is the former governor of the Shiite holy city of Najaf and once belonged to the Dawa party, the longtime opposition force to ex-dictator Saddam Hussein who was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.

President Barham Saleh said he had nominated Zurfi to replace outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi, who resigned in December, at a time when Iraq has been rocked by an unprecedented wave of anti-government rallies. Zurfi, a member of the Nasr coalition led by ex-PM Haider al-Abadi, now has 30 days to pull together a government, which must then be confirmed by parliament.

His nomination comes at an especially tumultuous time for Iraq, which has been battered by almost six months of street protests, collapsing oil prices, the novel coronavirus outbreak and the renewed rocket attacks which Washington blames on pro-Iranian forces.

A senior government source told that political factions had intensely debated names for days, seeking a "non-confrontational" figure in an attempt to preserve the status quo. Iraq has since 2003 been governed under a sectarian power-sharing system characterised by intense horsetrading between sects and parties. An earlier nominee, Mohammad Allawi, had failed to form a cabinet by March 2, triggering a new 15-day deadline for Saleh that was set to end late Tuesday. The president's announcement came just hours after a new pre-dawn rocket attack targeted foreign troops stationed in Iraq.

Two rockets hit the Besmaya base about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Baghdad, according to the Iraqi military, the US-led coalition and NATO, all of which have forces stationed there. The Iraqi military made no mention of casualties and a NATO press officer told that  none of its forces were hurt. The past week has seen a renewed spike in rockets hitting Iraqi bases hosting foreign forces, with three coalition troops killed on March 11 in an attack on the Taji air base, which was targeted again on March 14. Iraq's parliament, which sees the US strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, has voted to oust all foreign forces -- but the paralysis gripping the political class has slowed the implementation of the decision.

Tel aviv, 17 March 2020, TON: Israel’s government has approved emergency measures to track people suspected or confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus by monitoring their mobile phones, immediately raising privacy concerns in the country.

The cabinet unanimously approved the use of the technology, developed initially for counter-terrorism purposes, in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, first raised the issue during the weekend. He said authorities would use the data to notify people who may have come into contact with someone infected with the virus, and also to enforce quarantine orders.

In a Monday evening televised speech, the leader said the cyber monitoring would be in effect for 30 days. “Israel is a democracy and we must maintain the balance between civil rights and the public’s needs,” Netanyahu said. “These tools will very much assist us in locating the sick and stopping the virus from spreading.”

Using emergency powers, he bypassed what would typically be a process of approval by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. It had looked likely a parliamentary subcommittee would have delayed the rollout. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said providing the country’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, with new secretive powers was a “dangerous precedent and a slippery slope that must be approached and resolved after much debate and not after a brief discussion”.

Netanyahu’s authority to implement such measures has also been questioned. The country is battling the coronavirus while also under an extending political crisis, with Netanyahu ruling as interim leader. His opponent, Benny Gantz, is prime minister-designate and attempting to form a government although it is unclear if enough lawmakers will back him.

London, 17 March 2020, TON: England’s deputy chief medical officer has insisted the stricter measures to tackle the coronavirus had not been introduced too late.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam told: “We are following the science very carefully and consider the measures we announced yesterday have been announced at the right time - not too early and certainly not too late."

“We don’t rule out taking further measures if these are necessary but much of this depends on how the next two weeks play out.”

He could not rule out the strict measures having to last for a year but predicted they would last at least “several months”.

The more people will encounter the coronavirus and become resistant with herd immunity, but “that will take time”.

“But, yes, you’re absolutely right that we can’t say how long this will need to go on for,” he said.

“I don’t know if it could be a year yet. I think we are too far out to make those kind of predictions but I certainly think it could be several months.”

The approval came just two days after Putin signed the reform bill, which has faced fierce criticism from opposition figures who say it will allow the longtime Russian leader to become "president for life."

Moscow, 17 March, 2020, TON: Russia's Constitutional Court on Monday approved a package of amendments including a "reset" of President Vladimir Putin's previous terms, giving him the possibility to rule into 2036.

The approval came just two days after Putin signed the reform bill, which has faced fierce criticism from opposition figures who say it will allow the longtime Russian leader to become "president for life."

The court published the ruling on its website, upholding a wide-ranging package of reforms first proposed by Putin in January and approved last week by Russia's two houses of parliament.

A public vote on the reforms has been scheduled for April 22 but it was unclear whether that might be delayed by the global coronavirus crisis.

Putin first proposed the reforms in January, in a shock to Russia's political establishment that was quickly followed by the resignation of his longtime Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The reforms included granting more power to parliament and strengthening the role of the State Council, an advisory body, leading to speculation that Putin — first elected in 2000 — could hold on to power in a new role.

Putin repeatedly denied he had any intention of staying on but then last week suddenly backed a last-minute amendment by the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, restarting the clock on previous presidential terms.