"I'm just doing my bit," says Iragartze Fernandez, the part-time referee turned full-time nurse who has swapped the whistle for a face-mask in the hope of helping Spain combat the deadly coronavirus.

Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu will be used as a storage center for medical equipment to help Spain's fight against the coronavirus, the club confirmed on Thursday. 

London hospitals are overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, the head of an organization representing bosses in the state-run National Health Service said Thursday.

The World Health Organization's European office said Thursday it saw "encouraging signs" as Italy reported a lower rate of infections of the new coronavirus, cautioning it was too soon to say whether the worst had passed.

The number of declared coronavirus cases in Europe topped 250,000, more than half of which are in Italy and Spain, according to an AFP tally Thursday at 1200 GMT.

The coronavirus death toll in Spain surged to 4,089 after 655 people died within 24 hours, the health ministry said on Thursday.

From being duped into taking poisonous "cures", to watching businesses crumble and avoiding life-saving medication, people are suffering devastating real-world impacts of a deluge of online virus misinformation.

The US Senate unanimously passed the nation's largest-ever rescue package late Wednesday, a $2 trillion lifeline to suffering Americans, critically depleted hospitals and an economy all ravaged by a rapidly spreading coronavirus crisis.

The French military will support public services strained by the coronavirus epidemic, President Emmanuel Macron has said, as the country's death toll topped 1,300.

Nine doctors have died in the Philippines from the coronavirus, the country's top medical association said Thursday, as hospitals were overwhelmed and medics complained about a lack of protection on the front lines.