The World Bank has approved USD 1 billion emergency funding for India to help it tackle the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed 76 lives and infected 2,500 people in the country.

The coronavirus death toll in Spain surged past 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 deaths in 24 hours, with the number of confirmed cases passing the 110,000 mark, the government said.

Israel's health minister, who has had frequent contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials, has the new coronavirus, the Health Ministry announced Thursday.

America continues to wage an all-out war to defeat the "horrible" coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, as the US reported over 5,000 deaths and more than 200,000 infections, the highest in the world, due to the fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic is the most challenging crisis the world has faced since World War II, one that is killing people and will also lead to an economic recession without any parallel in the recent past, according to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

 The coronavirus deaths crossed 4,000 in the US on Wednesday, a number higher than the ghastly 9/11 terror attacks in the country, even as the top health experts projected that the pandemic could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans.

Saudi Arabia's hajj minister has asked Muslims to temporarily defer preparations for the annual pilgrimage amid uncertainty over the coronavirus pandemic.

World-renowned virologist Gita Ramjee has become the first Indian-origin South African to have died after contracting the novel coronavirus that has killed five people in the country.