COVID-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
It's a major step towards the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and ravaged communities
The WHO's emergency committee first declared that COVID represented its highest level of alert more than three years ago, on January 30, 2020.
The status helps focus international attention on a health threat, as well as bolstering collaboration on vaccines and treatments.
Lifting it is a sign of the progress the world has made in these areas, but COVID-19 is here to stay, the WHO has said, even if it no longer represents an emergency.
The death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, according to WHO data.
Israeli troops and tanks pushed on Saturday into parts of a congested northern Gaza Strip district that they had previously skirted in the more than seven-month-old war, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, medics and residents said.
At least 47 people have died after continued heavy rain and flooding in northern Afghanistan, an official said on Sunday, a day after a similar number were killed in a central province.
Russian airstrikes killed at least five people and injured 16 others in a recreation area just outside Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv on Sunday, local officials said.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz will undergo medical tests on Sunday due to "high temperature and joint pain", state news agency SPA reported.
A volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera has spectacularly erupted, spewing a grey ash cloud into the sky, and people from seven nearby villages have been evacuated, authorities said on Sunday.
Dubai Duty Free executive vice chairman and CEO, Colm McLoughlin, announced that he will be stepping down from his role after 55 years in the travel retail industry and 41 years of leadership at Dubai Duty Free. Colm joined the Business Breakfast to reflect on his epic career.
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