SINGAPORE — Stocks in Japan were set to trade higher at the open as investors in Asia-Pacific react to the Democrat Joe Biden’s defeat of incumbent Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race, according to NBC projections.Futures pointed to a higher open for Japanese stocks, with the Nikkei futures in Chicago at 24,425 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 24,360. That compared against the Nikkei 225’s last close at 24,325.23.- Advertisement – Shares in Australia edged higher in early trade, with the S&P/ASX 200 up around 0.9%.Former U.S. vice president Biden won following his projected win in the states of Pennsylvania as well as Nevada, according to NBC News projections on Saturday. Still, Trump is refusing to concede the election, claiming it’s “far from over.”On the economic data front, China’s exports surged 11.4% in October as compared to a year earlier, according to official statistics released over the weekend. – Advertisement – – Advertisement – – Advertisement – Meanwhile, on the coronavirus front, infections continue to surge stateside. The U.S. recently reported more than 126,000 new infections for two day in a row. Globally, the number of coronavirus infections crossed the 50 million mark on Sunday, according to Reuters.CurrenciesThe U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 92.184 following a decline in recent days from levels above 93.1.The Japanese yen traded at 103.24 per dollar after strengthening from levels above 104.3 against the greenback last week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7288 after last week’s rise from levels below $0.711. read more

Of the women who received Truvada, 34 became infected with H.I.V. during the trial, compared with just four of the women receiving the injections; two of those four women had stopped taking the injections, Dr. Smith said.After an interim analysis showed that the long-acting injection was 89 percent more effective than Truvada, an independent data safety monitoring board recommended that the trial be stopped early.“I am extremely excited about the findings of this study, and I have to admit that I was on razor’s edge waiting for these results,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an H.I.V. expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the trial.- Advertisement – The drug does not need to be refrigerated, so mobile clinics and community centers can offer it to women or bundle it with injectable birth control, Dr. Gandhi said.A previous trial tested the drug in nearly 4,600 cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men and found it to be 66 percent more effective than Truvada in that population. That trial was expected to continue into 2022, but was stopped in May for similar reasons. – Advertisement – And women will need easy access to the shots every eight weeks,which must be given by a medical professional. During the clinical trial, because of restrictions introduced during the pandemic, “there was a scramble to make sure that these women could continue to get their injections on time,” Dr. Smith of ViiV Healthcare said. The trial researchers sent transportation for the women and managed to retain 98 percent of the participants, she said.The randomized, double-blind clinical trial was conducted by the H.I.V. Prevention Trials Network, an international collaborative funded by the National Institutes of Health. The trial compared the injected drug, called cabotegravir, with Truvada in 3,223 participants in 20 sites across seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa.- Advertisement – read more

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Feb 10, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – China and Indonesia reported fatal human cases of H5N1 avian influenza today, while Azerbaijan joined the list of countries with outbreaks in wild birds.In addition, there were reports that the virus was spreading to more farms in Nigeria, which was revealed this week as the first African country hit by the pathogen.In Indonesia, a 23-year-old woman from Bekasi, east of Jakarta, died of what local tests showed was avian flu, according to an Associated Press (AP) report published today. Ilham Patu, an official at Sulianti Saroso Hostial in Jakarta, said she had been sick for 5 days.The case was the second one reported in Indonesia in the past 2 days. Yesterday Patu said a 27-year-old woman from Cikarang, another town east of Jakarta, had tested positive for avian flu, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP). She too was being treated at Sulianti Saroso Hospital.Samples from both women were being sent to a World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmatory testing, according to the reports.In China, a 20-year-old female farmer from the southern province of Hunan died of avian flu, according to an AP report based on information from the Chinese Health Ministry.The ministry said the woman, surnamed Long, had become ill Jan 27 and died Feb 4. The report said she had handled poultry and that lab tests had confirmed she had the H5N1 virus.The WHO currently lists a total of 166 human cases, including 88 deaths. It does not yet include the Indonesian and Chinese cases mentioned here.In Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic on the west side of the Caspian Sea, north of Iran, officials said tests in Britain had confirmed H5N1 in wild birds. The birds were found dead on the Absheron peninsula, which juts into the Caspian and includes the capital, Baku, according to an AP report.No human cases or outbreaks in domestic poultry had been reported, according to an AFP story. A veterinary official said the Abserhon region would be quarantined.Azerbaijan is at high risk for avian flu because it is a stopover and wintering site for thousands of migratory birds, the AFP story said.In Nigeria, an official from the northern state of Kano, speaking anonymously, said 16 farms in his area were thought to be affected by avian flu and that 100,000 chickens had died, according to another AFP report today.Also, Auwalu Haruna, head of the Kano Poultry Farmers Association, told AFP he knew of 30 affected farms.But Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello said the number of farms confirmed as affected remained at four, according to the story.Meanwhile, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said tests had confirmed that the H5N1 strain in Nigeria matches a strain found in humans in Turkey and China, AFP reported.”It has come from these countries and it is very, very unlikely that it has come through trade, and very likely that it has been through migratory birds,” Alex Thermann, special advisor to the head of the OIE, was quoted as saying.The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OIE called on Nigeria today to immediately close all poultry markets in Kaduna and Kano states and neighboring regions to contain the disease.In Bulgaria, officials said an H5 virus found in a dead swan is not the same type that has killed people, according to still another AFP report. The Bulgarian veterinary service said a British lab had determined that the virus was “a lethal virus for birds but not for people.”However, the report didn’t specify the neuraminidase (N) number of the virus. The dead bird was found in the Danube River Jan 30.See also:FAO/OIE statement on the situation in Nigeriahttp://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000230/index.html read more