PARIS: Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:
President Joe Biden tells Americans in a televised address from the White House that the newly identified Covid variant Omicron "is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic".
He says he does not foresee new lockdowns or extending travel restrictions.
Biden is speaking after the World Health Organization warns that the new variant poses a "very high" risk, while G7 health ministers say it is highly transmissible and requires "urgent action".
China's President Xi Jinping pledges one billion Covid vaccine doses to Africa, in a speech made via videolink to a China-Africa summit in Senegal's capital Dakar.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is "deeply concerned" as countries around the world impose travel restrictions on southern Africa in an attempt to stop the spread of the new Covid-19 variant discovered there.
The world must make sure that Covid chaos does not happen again by striking a pandemic preparedness treaty, the WHO says as countries gather to build a new accord.
Dutch health authorities say they have found 14 cases of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant among passengers arriving from South Africa, while Spain and Sweden detect their first cases.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor in waiting Olaf Scholz will hold talks on Tuesday with leaders of Germany's 16 states on toughening restrictions to halt a surge of coronavirus infections.
Dutch authorities place a couple in isolation in hospital after they made a "not really wise" bid to abscond from a quarantine hotel for Covid-positive passengers from South Africa, officials say.
Adults in Britain will now be able to get a third Covid jab, a government scientific advisory body says.
The coronavirus has killed at least 5,197,718 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Monday.
The United States has suffered the most Covid-related deaths with 776,639, followed by Brazil with 614,278, India with 468,790, Mexico with 293,897 and Russia with 273,964.
The countries with the most new deaths are Russia with 1,209, followed by Ukraine with 297 and India with 236.
Taking into account excess mortality linked to Covid-19, the World Health Organization estimates the overall death toll could be two to three times higher.
People can also go through anxiety when there is no identifiable stressor
Sindh's total number of children affected by current polio outbreak climbs to five after latest case in Hyderabad
Confirmation of KP's second poliovirus case comes days after its first case was reported in Mohmand on September 6
Dengue outbreak is expected to spread in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, six more cities
New case marks South Asia's first mpox case of clade 1b variety
Virus detected in children in Mohmand, Balochistan's Killa Abdullah and Sindh's Keamari district
