Two people from Manikganj, who were infected with Nipah virus after consuming raw date juice, died in Dhaka while undergoing treatment. The deceased were Babul Miah, 38, son of former union parishad member Mainuddin, and Lutfor Rahman, 27, son of Nazimuddin, hailing from Putail union of Manikganj's Sadar upazila. District Civil Surgeon Dr Mohammad Moazzem Ali Khan Chowdhury confirmed that Babul died after being infected with Nipah virus while Putail Union Parishad Chairman Jasim Uddin confirmed Lutfor's death. Babul was admitted to Manikganj 250-bed General Hospital with fever and headache on January 16. A day later, a team from Dhaka's International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) came and did his medical checkup. On January 18, he was shifted to a private hospital in Dhaka when his condition worsened and subsequently it was detected that he was infected with Nipah virus. The civil surgeon's office said that Babul breathed his last while undergoing treatment in the private hospital last Saturday (Jan 28). Local UP Chairman Jasim said Lutfor had been suffering from fever, headache and other complications after drinking raw date juice. Though initially he took medicine from a local pharmacy, later he was hospitalized in Dhaka when his condition deteriorated, he said, adding that Lutfor died while undergoing treatment there on January 16. Civil Surgeon Dr Moazzem said they had information on Babul's death from the Nipah virus but are not aware of Lufor's cause of death. Consumption of raw date juice, contaminated with bat saliva or urine, causes Nipah virus, according to icddr,b.

Authorities in the southern Indian state of  Kerala are working to contain a new outbreak of the Nipah virus. The state government has demarcated and cordoned off a wide containment zone around where the outbreak happened.  Authorities are now trying to locate and isolate the people who came in contact with those infected. People in neighboring regions have been alerted. The virus is believed to be a variant first discovered in Bangladesh. Humans and animals can infect each other directly through droplets or contact with contaminated surfaces. Human-to-human transmission is also possible.  The infection triggers encephalitis and can lead to mild to severe illness, but also to death. In the variant first discovered in Bangladesh, the mortality rate is very high: one third of patients have died. However, this variant is considered less contagious. How dramatic is the current outbreak? To contain a new outbreak of the dangerous Nipah virus, thousands of offices and schools have been closed in Kerala. In Kozhikode district, several containment zones have been established around nine villages. Two people have already died. Kerala Health Minister Veena George confirmed another case of the Nipah virus on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections in the state to five. A 24-year-old employee of a private hospital in Kozhikode was diagnosed with the virus, the minister said. This is the third outbreak of Nipah virus in Kerala in five years. Currently, 706 people are on the contact list, of whom 77 fall into the high-risk category and 153 are health workers. No one in the high-risk group is currently showing symptoms. At least 13 people are currently hospitalized for observation and are showing mild symptoms such as headache. How is the virus transmitted? Nipah virus is commonly found in fruit bats (Pteropodidae), which feed on nectar and pollen, as opposed to vampire bats which eat insects and drink the blood of animals. Fruit bats are much bigger and use their eyes, and not ultrasound, to orient themselves. Scientists still don't conclusively know how the virus is transmitted from fruit bats to pigs, cattle or even humans. However, there are indications that both humans and animals can get infected by coming in contact with the contaminated saliva and urine of fruit bats. The 2018 outbreak in Kerala was probably due to contamination of a drinking water source. Dead fruit bats were later found in a well belonging to the house of an infected family in Changaroth. First, many of the family members fell ill. Later, their acquaintances also got sick.  Why is the virus so dangerous? The Nipah virus aggressively inflames the brain. The US Centers for Disease Control cites an incubation period of five days to two weeks. Initial symptoms resemble those of the flu: fever, nausea and severe headache. Some patients experience respiratory problems. Later, disorientation, dizziness and confusion follow. Within one to two days, patients can slip into a coma and die. The mortality rate for Nipah disease is 70%.  How can the disease be treated? There is no vaccination or medication against the Nipah virus — neither for animals, nor for humans. Medications have so far only been able to alleviate the symptoms. In principle, patients must be immediately isolated and taken to an intensive care unit where vital body functions can be supported. Contact persons or suspected cases must be quarantined to stop the spread of the infectious disease.  Where does the Nipah virus come from? Nipah virus was first discovered in 1998 in the Malaysian village of Sungai Nipah. Febrile encephalitis — an illness caused by the virus entering the brain — and, in some cases, severe respiratory infections were observed in 229 individuals. Men who worked in slaughterhouses were the first to catch the infection. It became apparent that one could contract the disease from animals. Around the same time, a comparatively mild outbreak of a respiratory infection caused by an unknown pathogen was observed in pigs in Malaysia. Only later did scientists find that the workers and the pigs had been infected by the same virus. As a precaution, more than 1 million pigs — half the country's total pig population — were culled in Malaysia. Since then, infection cases of the highly contagious virus have been spotted only sporadically, for example in Bangladesh in 2001 and 2003, and in Kerala in 2018 and 2021. Is the Nipah virus threatening a new pandemic? The latest Nipah outbreak in Kerala is in remote rural area. If a spread or an epidemic in the region can be prevented, a spread of the Nipah virus to other countries and continents and thus a pandemic is very unlikely.

Bangladesh today exceeded 400 dengue deaths as 18 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours till 8:00am monday while 2,480 were admitted to different hospitals during same period. a press release of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said, "During the period, 919 dengue patients were hospitalised in Dhaka city while 1,561 were admitted to different hospitals outside Dhaka." "This year, 416 deaths, the highest in a year since dengue was detected in 2000, were reported from dengue disease while 281 died last year," the daily statement of the DGHS said. With the new cases, the total number of patients rose to 87,891, the statement said, adding: "Some 78,044 patients were released from different hospitals this year of the total patients."  "A total of 9,431 dengue patients are undergoing treatment at different hospitals. Of them, 4,140 are in Dhaka while 5,291 are outside the capital city," it added. According the DGHS statement, among the total dengue positive cases, 3,2798 are female and 55,093 male while 238 deaths from dengue are female and 178 male. Health experts warned the dengue situation may deteriorate this month and in the next month, asking authorities concerned to launch a massive campaign against all types of mosquitoes.   Analysing the amount of rainfall, temperature and humidity in Bangladesh, they described August and September months as the most suitable period for breeding of Aedes mosquitoes. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Outbreaks of the disease are usually seasonal, peaking during and after the rainy season. 

Nipah virus infection has been found in 28 districts in country, said the health department. Beds in Mohakhali's covid hospital have been ordered to be prepared. In a letter sent from the health department, the hospital has been asked to prepare 10 isolation ward and 10 ICU beds. Earlier, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Malik said in a press conference on the outbreak of Nipah virus in the meeting room of the Ministry of Health at noon on January 29, that eight people have been infected with Nipah virus this season, five of them have died.  Due to this virus, the death rate is 70 percent. The health minister said that this disease is caused by drinking raw date juice. Bats carry this virus.  Zahid Malik said, We have taken steps to make people aware of this virus. We made TVC. Infected people are being treated in a separate unit in the hospital. According to IEDCR, Nipah virus was first detected in the country in 2001 in Meherpur. Then in 2003 Naogaon. However, its biggest outbreak occurred in 2004 in Faridpur district. There were 35 infected and 27 died.

After the perplexing exordium of COVID-19, one of the pernicious most zoonotic viruses(from humans to animals) ever, the public might exercise their caution if any unfledged variety is found coming to view. Although many zoonotic diseases cause mild infections, some are more severe. Most of the world's large-scale outbreaks, such as the Coronavirus, Ebola, MERS, and the Zika virus, have been caused by the spread of zoonotic viruses. The world is grappling with the internecine SARS‑CoV‑2 which has claimed 6.5M lives to date. Monkey-pox is also getting a scary go. Now the situation is compounded by the appearance of a new zoonotic type virus, dubbed, Langya henipavirus (LayV), detected in 35 dissociated fever patients in hospitals in Shandong and Henan provinces of China between 2018 and 2021. This is a negative-strand RNA virus that is generically pinpointed in mammals like shrews and fruit bats. It spreads specifically or implicitly to people from shrews – a small mouse-like mammal found in an increasing proportion of occupancies. The virus was also detected in 2% of domestic goats and 5% of dogs. "There are clearly repeated transmission events from what looks to be a common reservoir in shrews," said Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biology professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Research suggests that the shrew may be a natural repertory of the virus. A piece of good tidings is, that the pathogen did not call forth any reported deaths still and all. Symptoms reported appeared to be mostly mild – fever, fatigue, cough, anorexia, myalgia, nausea, and headache. The researchers did not find definitive evidence of LayV spreading between people — there were no clusters of cases in the same family, within a short window of time, or in close geographical proximity. "We are hugely underestimating the number of these zoonotic cases in the world, and this (Langya virus) is just the tip of the iceberg," said emerging virus expert Leo Poon, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health. Some henipaviruses are fraught with danger; the Nipah virus, for instance, has a fatality rate between 40% and 75%.This alien virus appears to be an identical cousin of two other viruses that are instrumental in humans: the Nipah virus and Hendra virus. Communicable disease experts have long warned that the climate crisis and the destruction of nature will inflate the risk of viruses being transmitted from animals to humans, in events known as “zoonotic spillovers”. Compiled and edited from different online sources by Sazzad Hossain Shihab

Troops were set to hit the streets of Sydney on Monday to enforce its prolonged lockdown, as stay-at-home orders in Australia's third-largest city Brisbane were extended to curb a worsening outbreak. About 300 Australian Defence Force personnel will be deployed in Sydney after New South Wales state police requested military help to enforce Covid-19 rules. Authorities have been struggling to stop the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant in Sydney -- and ensure that residents follow containment rules -- with more than 3,600 cases recorded since mid-June. "Police officers will be assisted by ADF personnel as they deliver food parcels, conduct welfare door-knocks and go through compliance checks of stay-at-home and self-isolation orders," NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said Saturday. More than five million people in Australia's biggest city and surrounding areas are entering their sixth week of a lockdown set to run until the end of August. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes for exercise, essential work, medical reasons, and to shop for necessities such as food. But compliance has been patchy and police have increasingly been doling out fines to those violating the restrictions. The defence force said the latest deployment was in addition to the 250 military personnel already working at hotels and airports in New South Wales. Meanwhile, millions of people in Brisbane and several surrounding regions will remain under lockdown until Sunday after an "escalating" outbreak there grew to 29 cases. Those stay-at-home orders had been scheduled to lift on Tuesday. "That will make it an 8-day lockdown. And we desperately hope that that will be sufficient for our contact tracers to get into home quarantine absolutely anyone who could have been exposed to the Delta strain," acting Queensland state premier Steven Miles said. The outbreak was linked to a Brisbane school student, with pupils and teachers at several schools subsequently placed into isolation. With about 14 percent of Australia's 25 million people fully vaccinated, authorities are still relying on lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has outlined a long road out of restrictions -- setting a target of 80 percent of the eligible population to be fully vaccinated before borders are reopened and lockdowns eliminated. Australia has recorded more than 34,000 cases and 925 deaths so far during the pandemic. Source: AFP/BSS AH

The head of the EU’s disease control agency warned Friday that the novel coronavirus could last indefinitely even as global infections slowed by nearly half in the last month and vaccine rollouts gathered pace in parts of the world. In an interview with AFP, ECDC chief Andrea Ammon urged European countries in particular not to drop their guard against a virus that “seems very well adapted to humans” and may require experts to tweak vaccines over time, as is the case with the seasonal flu. “So we should be prepared that it will remain with us,” according to Ammon, head of the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. After the latest harsh wave of a pandemic that started in China more than a year ago, glimmers of hope flickered as an AFP database showed the rate of new Covid-19 infections has slowed by 44.5 percent worldwide over the past month. More than 107 million people have been infected worldwide and nearly 2.4 million have died from Covid-19. But disease experts warned that vaccines won’t end the pandemic unless all countries receive doses in a fast and fair manner. Writing in an open letter published in the Lancet medical journal, the authors said with vaccine stockpiling in wealthier countries, “it could be years before the coronavirus is brought under control at a global level.” The warning came as US vaccine maker Moderna said it was seeking clearance with regulators around the world to put 50 percent more coronavirus vaccine into each of its vials as a way to quickly boost current supply levels. In Britain, a marked drop in infections and accelerating vaccinations have prompted some within the governing Conservative Party to push for stay-at-home rules to be lifted in early March. Much of the country re-entered lockdown in early January to curb a more transmissible Covid-19 variant first identified in the UK. The British government nonetheless voiced caution, a watchword echoed elsewhere, including Italy, Portugal and Australia. – ‘It’s rough’ – In Australia, more than six million people in Melbourne and its surrounding area were under an emergency five-day coronavirus lockdown. “It’s rough. It’s going to be a rough few days for everyone,” said tennis star Serena Williams, reacting to the lockdown moments after her latest victory at the Australian Open. While play will continue under the restrictions, fans will no longer be permitted and players must restrict themselves to biosecure “bubbles”. The toll on sports, entertainment and economies continued to be massive. The Tokyo Olympic Games are due to open in July after multiple delays. But the games organisers are already battling public misgivings about holding the huge international event this summer. – Record drop for UK economy – European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen urged the 27 EU member countries to accelerate ratification of a key part of the bloc’s 750-billion-euro ($900-billion) plan to recover from the impact of the pandemic. The UK — which has left the EU and has Europe’s highest virus death toll after a heavily criticised initial response to the pandemic — reported that the economy shrank a record 9.9 percent last year. Finance minister Rishi Sunak admitted the impact would be a “serious shock” and warned: “We should expect the economy to get worse before it gets better.” Hungary meanwhile said it will become the first EU nation to start using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The country broke ranks with the EU last month by becoming the first bloc member to approve Sputnik V, ordering two million doses to be delivered over three months, enough to vaccinate one million people. Russia registered Sputnik V in August, months ahead of Western competitors but before the start of large-scale clinical trials, which left some experts wary. However, recent results published in The Lancet found that the vaccine is 91.6 percent effective against Covid-19. Some EU leaders seem to be warming to the idea of deploying Sputnik V as the bloc struggles with supply shortfalls for the three vaccines it has approved. – Plans to vaccinate all Americans – The European Medicines Agency has so far approved vaccines for the bloc developed by US-German firm Pfizer-BioNTech, US firm Moderna and British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca with Oxford University. The EMA said Friday it had started a “rolling review” of a vaccine from German manufacturer CureVac, the first step towards possible authorisation. In the United States — the world’s hardest-hit country with more than 480,000 deaths — health authorities on Friday urged schools to reopen safely and as soon as possible, offering a detailed plan for limiting the spread of Covid-19. The strategy emphasizes universal masking, hand washing, disinfection and contact tracing. While recommending vaccination for teachers and staff, it stops short of saying it is necessary — a divisive issue among teachers’ unions. The push comes as the United States is in the midst of an aggressive mass vaccination campaign, with a goal of inoculating nearly all Americans by the end of July. Hard-hit Brazil’s drive to vaccinate its population has stumbled this week as a lack of doses forced authorities to slow or halt immunisation in several key areas. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s Covid-19 vaccines rollout will be back on track in March with stepped up deliveries of doses to make up for recent delays. Source: AFP/BSS AH

Britain on Wednesday became the first nation to approve the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, as Germany logged its highest daily death toll with the pandemic surging worldwide. Fears have also grown following the detection in Britain of a new strain of the virus experts fear is more transmissible, and the variant has been found in a number of other countries, including the United States and India. The pandemic prompted unprecedented global efforts to develop vaccines in record time, and following Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the AstraZeneca-Oxford candidate became the third to win approval in the Western world. “It is truly fantastic news,” tweeted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “We will now move to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.” Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the one from AstraZeneca and Oxford does not need to be stored at very low temperatures. It can be kept, transported and handled at normal refrigerated conditions, making it easier and cheaper to administer and a much smaller logistical challenge, especially for less wealthy nations. Russia and China also claim to have developed Covid-19 vaccines, and have already started administering them. Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm on Tuesday said that Phase 3 trials of its candidate had shown 79 percent effectiveness, close to the more than 90 percent achieved by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The firm has applied to China’s drug regulator for approval. But Beijing has struggled to gain international trust for its vaccines, hindered by a lack of data transparency as well as criticism over its handling of the initial outbreak of the virus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and its attempts to silence whistleblowers. The number of infections in that city may have been 10 times higher than official figures suggest, according to a study by China’s Centre for Disease Control. – New variant worries – Even as vaccinations ramp up in Europe and North America, global infections have surged close to 82 million, with nearly 1.8 million deaths. Germany, which had handled the first coronavirus wave relatively well, has been hit hard by the second. It logged more than 1,000 daily deaths for the first time, authorities said Wednesday. Fears have also grown with the recent detection in Britain of a virus variant experts believe could be more transmissible. The variant has been detected in a number of other countries, after pushing Britain to a new daily record of infections. Indian authorities were trying Wednesday to track down tens of thousands of people who arrived from Britain in recent weeks as cases of the new variant more than doubled in 24 hours. The variant was detected for the first time in the United States and Latin America on Tuesday. The EU health agency has warned the strain carried a high risk for more hospitalisations and deaths — not because the infections are more severe but because it spreads more easily. – ‘Greatest operational challenge’ – In the United States — the worst-hit nation in the world — President-elect Joe Biden called mass vaccination “the greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation”. The Trump administration had predicted that 20 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of December. But with days left, just over two million have received the first shot of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Biden, who takes over from Donald Trump on January 20, renewed his promise to administer 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, and confirmed he would invoke a Korean War-era law to force private industry to step up production. “The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling far behind,” Biden said, promising: “I’m going to move Heaven and Earth to get us going in the right direction.” But he warned: “The next few weeks and months are going to be very tough –– a very tough period for our nation, maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic.” Source: AFP AH

Moderna Inc. said it would ask U.S. and European regulators Monday to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine as new study results confirm the shots offer strong protection — ramping up the race to begin limited vaccinations as the coronavirus rampage worsens. Multiple vaccine candidates must succeed for the world to stamp out the pandemic, which has been on the upswing in the U.S. and Europe. U.S. hospitals have been stretched to the limit as the nation has seen more than 160,000 new cases per day and more than 1,400 daily deaths. Since first emerging nearly a year ago in China, the virus has killed more than 1.4 million people worldwide. Moderna is just behind Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech in seeking to begin vaccinations in the U.S. in December. Across the Atlantic, British regulators also are assessing the Pfizer shot and another from AstraZeneca. Moderna created its shots with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and already had a hint they were working, but said it got the final needed results over the weekend that suggest the vaccine is more than 94% effective. Of 196 COVID-19 cases so far in its huge U.S. study, 185 were trial participants who received the placebo and 11 who got the real vaccine. The only people who got severely ill — 30 participants, including one who died — had received dummy shots, said Dr. Tal Zaks, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company’s chief medical officer. When he learned the results, “I allowed myself to cry for the first time,” Zaks told The Associated Press. “We have already, just in the trial, have already saved lives. Just imagine the impact then multiplied to the people who can get this vaccine.” Moderna said the shots’ effectiveness and a good safety record so far — with only temporary, flu-like side effects — mean they meet requirements set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use before the final-stage testing is complete. The European Medicines Agency, Europe’s version of FDA, has signaled it also is open to faster, emergency clearance. WHAT COMES NEXT The FDA has pledged that before it decides to roll out any COVID-19 vaccines, its scientific advisers will publicly debate whether there’s enough evidence behind each candidate. First up on Dec. 10, Pfizer and BioNTech will present data suggesting their vaccine candidate is 95% effective. Moderna said its turn at this “science court” is expected exactly a week later, on Dec. 17. RATIONING INITIAL DOSES If the FDA allows emergency use, Moderna expects to have 20 million doses ready for the U.S. by year’s end. Recipients will need two doses, so that’s enough for 10 million people. Pfizer expects to have 50 million doses globally in December. Half of them — or enough for 12.5 million people — are earmarked for the U.S. Source: UNB AH

The United States hopes to begin coronavirus vaccinations in early December, a top government health official said Sunday, the latest positive news to emerge even as cases surge across the worst-hit nation and elsewhere around the globe. The beginning of vaccinations could be a crucial shift in the battle against a virus that has claimed more than 1.4 million lives worldwide, including 255,000 just in the US, since emerging from China late last year. Encouraging results from vaccine trials have bolstered hopes for an end to the pandemic, as nations reimpose restrictions and lockdowns that slowed the spread earlier this year but turned lives and economies upside down across the globe. Two leading vaccine candidates — one by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech and another by US firm Moderna — have been shown to be 95 percent effective in trials, and Pfizer has already applied for emergency use approval from US health authorities. “Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours of approval” by the US Food and Drug Administration, Moncef Slaoui, head of the US government virus vaccine effort, told CNN, pointing to possible dates of December 11-12. FDA vaccine advisors will meet December 10 to discuss approval. Slaoui estimated that 20 million people across the US could be vaccinated in December, with 30 million per month after that. But top US infectious disease official Anthony Fauci, who said “maybe 20 million people will be able to get vaccinated by the middle to the end of December,” warned the situation could get worse before getting better if people fail to take precautions in the coming holiday season. “We’re in a very difficult situation at all levels,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” – Vaccines for all? – With cases surpassing 12 million in the United States, the highest in the world, many Americans were nonetheless heading to airports to travel for this week’s Thanksgiving holiday, despite health officials’ warnings to stay home. Some US states were imposing new restrictions, including California, where a 10:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew took effect Saturday. New York city has closed schools again. US drug regulators on Saturday already gave emergency approval to a Covid-19 antibody therapy — one used by US President Donald Trump — that could help treat those infected. However, G20 nations were pushing for “equitable” global access to vaccines, with worries poorer nations will be left behind. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said more needed to be done, since no major vaccine agreements had been struck yet for poorer nations. “We will now speak with (global vaccine alliance group) GAVI about when these negotiations will begin because I am somewhat worried that nothing has been done on that yet,” Merkel told reporters on Sunday in Berlin after a virtual G20 summit hosted by Saudi Arabia. There were signs that restrictions being imposed in certain countries were helping slow infections. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose country has been badly hit by the pandemic, said Sunday that a strategy to curb infections was working. Spain declared a state of emergency last month, which allowed regional governments to impose virus restrictions such as nighttime curfews. The country has recorded fewer than 400 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last two weeks, compared to nearly 530 cases at the start of the month, he told a news conference after the G20 summit. – ‘A mockery’ – But the restrictions and mask-wearing rules have led to pushback and protests in some countries, particularly the United States, where Trump supporters have railed against closures. Similar pushback has been seen elsewhere, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas lashed out Sunday at anti-mask protesters comparing themselves to Nazi victims, accusing them of trivializing the Holocaust and “making a mockery” of the courage shown by resistance fighters. The harsh words came after a young woman took to the stage at a protest against coronavirus restrictions in Hanover Saturday saying she felt “just like Sophie Scholl,” the German student executed by the Nazis in 1943 for her role in the resistance. Government measures introduced to halt the spread of the coronavirus have triggered large protests in Germany, drawing in people from the far-left, conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists who claim the curbs infringe on their civil rights. While necessary to stop the spread of the virus, restrictions have taken a heavy toll on economies across the world. The latest warning came on Sunday from Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak, who said the country’s economy was under “enormous strain and stress.” Britain has suffered more than any other country in Europe from the coronavirus, recording more than 54,000 deaths from 1.4 million cases. In November, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government imposed a four-week lockdown to stop the spread of the disease. That is due to be partially lifted on December 2, giving some relief to businesses. Source: AFP/BSS AH