Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

As COVID-19 cases rise in U.S., precious plasma donations lag

In late April, a coalition of New Mexico healthcare systems began asking local COVID-19 survivors to donate their plasma, the antibody-rich blood product used to help treat people hospitalized with the disease. More than 50 people donated in May, but then the numbers starting falling, according to data from Vitalant, a nonprofit blood bank that works with the coalition to recruit donors. In June, 34 people gave plasma to the effort, the data show; in July it was just 29.

Alibaba’s Freshippo says will test all Shenzhen employees for COVID-19

Alibaba-owned supermarket chain Freshippo said on Saturday it has shut 21 off its Shenzhen stores and was requiring all its employees in the city to undergo tests for the novel coronavirus after three cases were found at one of its outlets there. Freshippo said two brand promoters and one staff member who worked at its store in the IBC mall in Shenzhen’s Luohu district had tested positive for the virus, citing findings made by the city’s health authority.

Modi says India set to mass produce COVID-19 vaccine, launches health mission

India is ready to mass produce COVID-19 vaccines when scientists give the go-ahead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech on Saturday, also launching a national project to roll out health identities for each citizen. In annual celebrations scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi identified health and economic self-reliance as the key priorities for his government.

Latin America’s coronavirus cases exceed 6 million

Coronavirus cases in Latin America, the region of the world worst-affected by the pandemic, exceeded 6 million on Friday and continued to accelerate, according to a Reuters tally, as most of its nations begin to relax lockdown measures. The region, which has reported an average of more than 86,000 daily infections of the new coronavirus in the last seven days and more than 2,600 COVID-19 deaths, reached 6,000,005 confirmed cases by Friday evening and 237,360 deaths. U.S. CDC says updated isolation guidance does not imply immunity to COVID-19

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said late on Friday its updated isolation guidance does not imply that a person is immune to re-infection with the novel coronavirus. “Contrary to media reporting today, this science does not imply a person is immune to reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the 3 months following infection”, the CDC said in a statement.

Exclusive: U.S. to make coronavirus strain for possible human challenge trials

U.S. government scientists have begun efforts to manufacture a strain of the novel coronavirus that could be used in human challenge trials of vaccines, a controversial type of study in which healthy volunteers would be vaccinated and then intentionally infected with the virus, Reuters has learned. The work is preliminary and such trials would not replace large-scale, Phase 3 trials such as those now under way in the United States testing experimental COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc, according to a statement emailed to Reuters by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Argentine firm behind AstraZeneca COVID vaccine Latam production sees April/May launch

The Argentine biotech firm working on the production of 400 million doses of an AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for Latin America said on Friday it could begin shipping the active substance of the product to Mexico for completion. Esteban Corley, director of mAbxience, the biotech firm, said he foresaw the finished product could be distributed in Latin America between April and May.

Pop-up COVID-19 testing sites help California farmers keep working

For farmworkers in California’s Coachella Valley, it’s brutally simple: no work means no food. But fear of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it amongst their families has created uncertainty and anxiety. In an effort to ease their fears, Dr. Raul Ruiz, a congressman representing California’s 36th District, partnered with Coachella Valley Volunteers in Medicine to bring pop-up testing sites to the fields.

Hispanics, African Americans hit hard in U.S. COVID-19 hotspot counties, says CDC

U.S. coronavirus hotspots had disproportionately high numbers of cases among communities of color, according to an analysis on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report adds to a growing body of evidence that long-standing health and social inequities have resulted in increased risk for infection and death from COVID-19 among communities of color, the CDC said

California encouraged by trends even as it passes 600,000 coronavirus cases, most in U.S.

California became the first U.S. state to surpass 600,000 cases of COVID-19 on Friday and the Midwest saw several record one-day rises as some states struggled to contain the pandemic even as a few welcomed students back to school campuses. California went over 603,000 novel coronavirus cases on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, although Governor Gavin Newsom said he was encouraged to see that hospitalizations have declined 20% over the past two weeks and admissions to ICU wards were down 14% in the same period.