On Wednesday, Corona virus infections worldwide crossed the 19 million mark, according to the WorldMeter website, which specializes in monitoring virus statistics, while Indonesia will soon begin testing a possible vaccine for the virus.
The United States topped the world with a number of injuries amounting to 4.9 million, and Brazil ranked second with 2.8 million injuries, then India with 1.9 million.
The Corona virus has spread to more than 200 countries around the world since it appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan on December 12, 2019, and the virus has killed 711,000 people around the world, while 12.3 million people are recovering.
In Germany, the number of new infections with the Coronavirus has risen above the level of one thousand cases per day for the first time since early May last, in the latest sign that lax adherence to the rules of social separation increases the risk of a second wave of outbreak.
The head of the German Doctors' Syndicate said earlier this week that the country was already facing a second wave of the virus, and risked dissipating its previous success in containing the outbreak due to a slack commitment to social estrangement.
Officials - including Health Minister Jens Span - have warned that it will be much more difficult to contain the new outbreak from next fall, which increases the importance of keeping the number of casualties down as summer approaches its end.
Vaccine trials in Indonesia and
in Southeast Asia, a senior researcher said that human experiments on a possible vaccine for the emerging corona virus are scheduled to start in Indonesia next week, in the framework of cooperation between the state company, "Bio Pharma" and the Chinese company "Sinovac Biotech".
The launch of vaccine testing comes as Indonesia faces difficulties in containing the outbreak of the Coronavirus with a steady rise in infections.
"The third stage of clinical trials is scheduled to start on August 11, and will include 1,620 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 59," Kasandi Rasmil, chief researcher at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, told reporters.
Rasmill said that half of the participants will get the vaccine over 6 months, while the rest will receive a placebo.
As of Wednesday, Indonesia had 116,000 HIV infections and 5,432 associated deaths.
In the Philippines, the Ministry of Health recorded, Thursday, 3561 people infected with the new Corona virus, as well as 28 deaths.
The ministry said in a bulletin that the total number of infections exceeded 119 thousand, exceeding the Philippines, Indonesia, as the most infected countries in East Asia. It added that the total deaths increased to 2150 cases.
On Tuesday, the authorities reimposed strict public isolation measures in the capital and its neighboring provinces for a period of two weeks, to limit the increase in the number of injuries after the easing of restrictions last June.