The World Health Organization expert mission to China ended this week without finding the source of the coronavirus that has killed over 2.3 million worldwide.

Iran began its vaccination campaign against Covid-19 on Tuesday to fight the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the illness, images broadcast by state television showed.

The WHO mission to China to uncover the origins of the coronavirus has failed to identify the source of the pandemic but the team on Tuesday ruled out the Wuhan lab-leak theory propagated by Donald Trump. 

An international team of experts who have been in China for the past month to help investigate Covid's origins will speak with the media in Wuhan on Tuesday, the WHO said.

On Thursday February 4, Dr. Jackie Maalouf, the Founder and President of DiaLeb, a Lebanese NGO that promotes diabetes care and prevention, was one of 8 international speakers at the virtual Launch of the Diabetes Epidemiology Guide organized by the International Diabetes Federation.

“Dr. Maalouf spoke about the challenges of data processes in Lebanon and the MENA region. She then shared some interesting facts related to diabetes epidemiology. She also highlighted the benefits of this new guide especially for countries with no updated data of patient registry,” a DiaLeb statement said.

South Africa suspended the start of its AstraZeneca inoculation programme over concerns the shot does not work on a new variant, with WHO experts due to meet Monday to discuss the vaccine already facing questions about its efficacy for over-65s.

Hundreds of thousands of students in Jordan went back to classrooms on Sunday after almost a year of school closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Israeli barbershops and some other businesses reopened Sunday as Israel began easing its third coronavirus lockdown Sunday amid an aggressive vaccination campaign.

Early Friday, the government announced it was lifting some restrictions imposed since December, when the country saw a rise in Covid-19 infections.

Iran will kick off its coronavirus vaccination campaign within a week, President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday, after the country received its first batch of Russia's Sputnik V jab.

The Islamic republic is fighting the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the coronavirus, with over 58,000 lives lost out of more than 1.4 million cases of infection.

China's drug authorities have given "conditional" market approval for a second Covid-19 vaccine, Sinovac's CoronaVac jab, the pharmaceutical company said Saturday.