Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

New Zealand retirement home in lockdown to test for COVID-19

A New Zealand retirement village has gone into lockdown after residents displayed symptoms of respiratory illness, the New Zealand Herald reported on Tuesday. The Village Palms retirement village in Christchurch advised of the lockdown in a letter to family members today, the newspaper said. No further details were immediately available.

South Korea’s Daewoong Pharma gets India nod to test an anti-parasite drug for COVID-19

South Korea’s Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co Ltd said on Tuesday it received Indian regulatory approval to test its anti-parasitic niclosamide drug to treat COVID-19 patients in an early-stage human trial. The phase 1 trial, approved by India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), will involve around 30 healthy participants to test the safety and kickstart this month, Daewoong said in a statement.

Sinovac launches a late-stage trial for potential COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia

China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd launched on Tuesday a late-stage human trial involving as many as 1,620 patients in Indonesia for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that it is developing with Indonesian state-owned peer Bio Farma. The candidate, known as CoronaVac and previously PiCoVacc, is among few potential vaccines that have entered late-stage trials for a large-scale study to gather proof of efficacy for regulatory approval.

Gilead seeks U.S. approval for COVID-19 treatment remdesivir

Gilead Sciences Inc has filed an application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking full approval for remdesivir, its experimental COVID-19 drug currently used under emergency authorization, the drugmaker said on Monday. The antiviral drug, which helped shorten the hospital recovery time in a U.S. trial, has been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic after the FDA granted it emergency use authorization (EUA) in May.

Papua New Guinea to lift lockdown despite surge in COVID-19 cases

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape is pressing ahead with plans to lift lockdown measures in the Pacific nation this week, even as a recent sharp spike in coronavirus infections worries health officials. Marape said a two-week lockdown in the capital of Port Moresby would be lifted from Wednesday, despite the country’s reported cases of COVID-19 doubling over the past week.

U.S. COVID-19 deaths drop for first time in four weeks

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 fell 16% to about 7,200 people last week, the first decline in deaths after four weeks of increases, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports. The country posted more than 376,000 new COVID-19 cases for the week ended August 9, or an average of roughly 53,000 per day. New cases have now fallen for three straight weeks, though the United States still accounts for a quarter of the global total of 20 million cases.

Global coronavirus cases hit 20 million: Reuters tally

Global coronavirus cases pushed past 20 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States, Brazil, and India accounting for more than half of all known infections. The respiratory disease has infected at least four times the average number of people struck down with severe influenza illnesses annually, according to the World Health Organization.

Germany’s confirmed coronavirus cases rise by 966 to 217,293: RKI

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 966 to 217,293, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday. The reported death toll rose by four to 9,201, the tally showed.

COVID-19 cases in U.S. children soared in late July, report says

The number of new COVID-19 cases among children in the United States rose 40% in the last two weeks of July, according to a report released just weeks before tens of millions of American students are scheduled to begin the new school year. Health experts are keeping an eye on coronavirus infections among kids and teenagers as officials struggle with the thorny question of whether to reopen schools for in-person classes, adopt a virtual learning model, or a hybrid of the two.

Novavax expects it can meet U.S. COVID-19 vaccine demand in 2021, executives say

Novavax Inc’s manufacturing capacity is sufficient to meet the U.S. demand for COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, which it believes could be as high as 500 million to 600 million doses, company executives said on Monday. Novavax said last week its experimental vaccine produced high levels of antibodies against the novel coronavirus, according to initial data from a small, early-stage clinical trial.