Moderna's experimental COVID-19 vaccine that combines its original shot with protection against the omicron variant appears to work, the company announced Wednesday.

COVID-19 vaccine makers are studying updated boosters that might be offered in the fall to better protect people against future coronavirus surges.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that it is aware of more than 700 global cases of monkeypox, including 21 in the United States, with investigations now suggesting it is spreading inside the country.

Jada Pinkett Smith turned her husband's Oscar-night blowup into a teachable moment about alopecia areata, the hair-loss disorder affecting her and millions of others that, in some cases, can impact a person's sense of identity.

"Considering what I've been through with my own health and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories," Pinkett Smith said on Wednesday's episode of "Red Table Talk."

As health authorities in Europe and elsewhere roll out vaccines and drugs to stamp out the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, some doctors acknowledge an ugly reality: The resources to slow the disease's spread have long been available, just not to the Africans who have dealt with it for decades.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 250 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported.

Dozens of doctors, nurses and medical personnel rallied Thursday outside the Central Bank in Beirut after declaring a two-day general strike to protest rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

The strike was declared by two medical professionals' unions -- The Syndicates of Doctors in Beirut and the North and the Syndicate of Private Hospital Owners -- which say they could no longer put up with Central Bank policies that have allowed banks to impose random capital controls and other restrictions.

The monkeypox outbreaks in non-endemic countries can be contained and human-to-human transmission of the virus stopped, the World Health Organization said Monday.

The EU health agency ECDC said Monday the risk that the rare disease monkeypox would spread widely among the general population was "very low", though high for certain groups.

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as "a random event" that might be explained by risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO's emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

A Lebanese doctor claimed Monday that there are at least two cases of monkeypox in Lebanon, as the Health Ministry confirmed that a sample from a suspected monkeypox patient has been sent to France for testing.

The doctor, Mohammed Fahmi Kharroub, a specialist in family medicine and chronic illnesses, told al-Jadeed TV in a live interview that he has diagnosed a patient in Lebanon with monkeypox and that he has been told about “another case in south Lebanon.”

Israel has confirmed its first case of monkeypox, joining several European and North American countries in detecting the disease endemic to parts of Africa.