The president is confronted by dire polling numbers ahead of the November 3 election, which comes as the economy struggles to recover from COVID shutdowns.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has been free of COVID-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days, his doctor said Wednesday. “The president this morning says ‘I feel great,'” doctor Sean Conley said in a brief update.

Trump tested positive last week and was hospitalized at the Walter Reed military medical center late Friday evening, returning to the White House on Monday evening. “His physical exam and vital signs, including oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, all remain stable and in normal range,” the doctor’s statement said.

The state of Sao Paulo, the epicentre of the national epidemic with 36,669 deaths and 1,016,755 cases, reopened schools on Wednesday.

SAO PAULO: Brazil on Wednesday said 31,553 COVID-19 cases were reported over the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total to 5,000,694.

And 734 more patients died of the disease, raising the national death toll to 148,228.

On Feb. 26, Brazil reported its first case and also the first in Latin America in the city of Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city.

Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll, after the United States, and is the third-worst hit by the pandemic after the United States and India.

The state of Sao Paulo, the epicentre of the national epidemic with 36,669 deaths and 1,016,755 cases, reopened schools on Wednesday, with social distancing rules in place.

The state government announced that it will carry out tests starting next week on 19,300 people within the educational system in 20 cities to track the virus as in-person classes begin.

More than 36 million cases were reported worldwide as of 0100 GMT, Oct.8, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

The Trump administration had issued an emergency use authorisation for Remdesivir after the drug showed moderate effectiveness in improving outcomes for patients hospitalised with virus.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump, who was shifted to a military hospital after being tested positive for COVID-19, is undergoing Remdesivir therapy and is “doing well”, the White House physician has said.

The Trump administration had issued an emergency use authorisation for Remdesivir earlier this year after the drug showed moderate effectiveness in improving outcomes for patients who were hospitalised with the coronavirus.

Trump, 74, was flown to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington DC, on Friday.

White House physician Sean Conley said medical specialists have recommended Remde Sivir therapy to treat the president’s COVID-19 infection.

“This evening, I am happy to report that the President is doing well,” Conley said in a health bulletin on Friday night, the first after the president was moved to the military hospital as a precautionary measure.

“He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate Remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably,” he said.

Conley, in a White House memorandum, said he recommended Trump be moved to Walter Reed Military Medical Centre “for further monitoring”.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, 50, were tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday.

While the president was taken to the military hospital, the First Lady stayed back at the White House.

GENEVA: The World Health Organization announced Monday that it and leading partners have agreed to a plan to roll out 120 million rapid-diagnostic tests for the coronavirus to help lower- and middle-income countries make up ground in a testing gap with richer countries – even if it’s not fully funded yet.

At USD 5 apiece, the antigen-based rapid diagnostic tests for which WHO issued an emergency-use listing last week, the program initially requires USD 600 million and is to get started as early as next month to provide better access to areas where it’s harder to reach with PCR tests that are used often in many wealthier nations.

The rapid tests look for antigens, or proteins found on the surface of the virus.

They are generally considered less accurate ” though much faster ” than higher-grade genetic tests, known as PCR tests.

Those tests require processing with specialty lab equipment and chemicals.

Typically that turnaround takes several days to deliver results to patients.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the program as “good news” in the fight against COVID-19.

“These tests provide reliable results in approximately 15 to 30 minutes, rather than hours or days, at a lower price with less sophisticated equipment,” he said.

“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR tests.

“”We have an agreement, we have seed funding and now we need the full amount of funds to buy these tests,”he said, without specifying.

Dr. Catharina Boehme, chief executive of a non-profit group called the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, said the rollout would be in 20 countries in Africa, and would rely on support of groups including the Clinton Health Initiative.

She said the diagnostic tests will be provided by SD Biosensor and Abbott.

Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund, a partnership that works to end epidemics, said it would make an initial USD 50 million available from its COVID-19 response mechanism.

He said the deployment of the quality antigen rapid diagnostic tests will be a “significant step”to help contain and combat the coronavirus.

“They’re not a silver bullet, but hugely valuable as a complement to PCR tests, since although they are less accurate, they’re much faster, cheaper and don’t require a lab,”he said.

Many rich countries have also faced problems rolling out accurate tests, and testing itself is no panacea — countries like France and the United States have all faced backlogs and hiccups at times, and rapid tests in Britain and Spain turned out to be inaccurate.

But rolling out testing in poorer countries aims to help health care workers get a better grip on where the virus is circulating, in hopes of following up with containment and other measures to stop it.

Sands said high-income countries are currently carrying out 292 tests per day per 100,000 people ” while the lowest-income countries were conducting 14 per 100,000 people.

He said the 120 million tests would represent a “massive increase”in testing, but were still a fraction of what is needed in those countries.