Health News Roundup: Japan PM Suga says coronavirus vaccinations to begin middle of next week; Are two masks better than one and more

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Japan PM Suga says coronavirus vaccinations to begin middle of next week

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday that the country would begin COVID-19 vaccinations from the middle of next week. Suga was speaking at a meeting with officials of the government and the ruling party. Suga had earlier said the vaccinations would start in mid-February.

Are two masks better than one?

When it comes to protecting yourself against new coronavirus variants, two masks may be better than one. A number of politicians, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Mitt Romney, have been spotted doubling up on face masks, and top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has recommended that everyday Americans do the same.

Hong Kong culls 3,000 pigs after African swine fever discovery

Hong Kong authorities ordered the culling of all 3,000 pigs in a herd after the African swine fever virus was discovered to be spreading for the first time in one of the city's farms. The disease, which is harmless to humans, is very rare in Hong Kong. The last outbreak in 2019 was due to pigs that were imported from the mainland and resulted in the culling of 10,000 pigs.

Chile leads Latin America vaccine charge as it hits millionth jab

Chile hit the one million mark in COVID-19 vaccinations on Tuesday, putting the small but wealthy Andean nation at the forefront of the region's inoculation drive on a per capita basis. The country´s health ministry said in a statement that 1,025,580 people had been vaccinated by late Tuesday evening, approximately one week after it launched an ambitious program aimed at first inoculating front line workers and the elderly.

Cambodia launches COVID-19 vaccinations with shots for PM's sons, ministers

Cambodia launched its coronavirus inoculation drive on Wednesday, using 600,000 vaccine doses donated by China, with the sons of long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen and government ministers among the first recipients. The Southeast Asian nation of about 16 million has managed to limit the spread of the disease, reporting just 478 infections and no deaths, although a rare cluster of cases emerged in November.

Eli Lilly's antibody combination receives FDA emergency use authorization for COVID-19

Eli Lilly's combination antibody therapy to fight COVID-19 has been granted emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Lilly said on Tuesday. Lilly's combination therapy of two antibodies, bamlanivimab and etesevimab, helped cut the risk of hospitalization and death in COVID-19 patients by 70%, data from a late-stage trial showed in January.

New Zealand to inoculate high-risk people first as COVID-19 vaccine gets full approval

New Zealand will first administer COVID-19 vaccines to quarantine personnel, front line health workers and airline staff, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said, as the government formally approved its use on Wednesday. New Zealand's medicines regulator last week provisionally approved the use of the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and Germany's BioNTech.

COVID may have taken 'convoluted path' to Wuhan, WHO team leader says

The head of a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of COVID-19 said bats remain a likely source and that transmission of the virus via frozen food is a possibility that warrants further investigation, but he ruled out a lab leak. Peter Ben Embarek, who led the team of independent experts in its nearly month-long visit to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged at a seafood market in late 2019, said the team's work had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed their picture of the outbreak.

California surpasses New York as U.S. state with most COVID-19 deaths

California surpassed New York on Tuesday as the U.S. state with the most coronavirus deaths, a grim reminder of the pandemic's toll even as the vaccine rollout and a sharp drop in new cases buoyed hopes of life eventually returning to normal. More than 45,000 people have died as of late Tuesday from COVID-19 in California, the most populous of the 50 states and one of the hardest hit in recent months. New York, severely stricken in the early stages of pandemic last spring, has reported 44,693 lives lost, according to a Reuters tally. https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-CALIFORNIA/xegvbwkqwpq

Australia's Victoria state considers N95 masks for quarantine hotels

The Australian state of Victoria is considering making N95 masks mandatory for quarantine hotels and will also ban nebuliser machines for inhaling medication at them, after a cluster of three cases was linked to a hotel. The first case linked to an infected traveller in quarantine at the Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport was a hotel worker with two more cases reported on Wednesday.

(With inputs from agencies.)