The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions and demands on resources have stifled immunization programs, leading to polio and measles outbreaks among children in the poorest parts of the world.   At the WHO’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that earlier this year, Africa was certified as free of wild polio, thanks to the coordinated efforts of multiple organizations, governments, and millions of health care workers.   But he said that since the pandemic hit, regular immunization programs like the one …

Health officials in Poland reported a record number of coronavirus-related deaths on Friday as the first treatments began for patients at a makeshift hospital in the country’s national stadium. The government reported 445 deaths and 27,086 new infections in its latest report. The caseload was the second highest number of in a single day during the pandemic — second only to Thursday’s total. The figures coincided with the admission of the first patient at a new field hospital located in Warsaw’s National Stadium. The rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases has placed Poland …

Russia reported 20,582 new COVID cases Friday, a record daily high. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, did not give any details about what steps public health officials would take to curb the uptick.  With more than 1.7 million COVID infections in Russia, only the United States, India and Brazil have more coronavirus cases. India reported more than 47,000 new COVID cases Friday. Anyone traveling from Denmark to Britain must now self-isolate for 14 days. Denmark was removed Friday from Britain’s corridor of travel, following a coronavirus outbreak on mink farms in the Scandanavian country. Denmark has announced it is culling more than 15 million minks in an effort to halt …

Researchers in Australia say a jelly-like sea sponge found along the Great Barrier Reef could provide clues about an elusive part of the human DNA. Their newly released study, which looks at 700 million years of evolution, concludes that elements of the human genome, what scientists describe as “an incredibly complex and ever-changing instruction manual of life,” work in the same way as the genome of the prehistoric sea sponge.Researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney say that while the DNA of humans and these simple, yet …