Agence France-Presse
The United States president Donald Trump threatened to cut ties with China over its role in the spread of the coronavirus, as the global death toll from the disease topped 300,000.
Despite fears of a second wave of infections, national and local governments around the world were easing lockdown orders as they tried to get stalled economies moving again.
But there were warnings on Friday that some of the world’s poorest people remained the most vulnerable, with predictions that a quarter of a billion Africans could be infected without urgent action.
Epidemiologists had long warned that the virus could race through the cramped, sewage-soaked alleys of the camps, where the persecuted Muslim minority had lived since fleeing a military offensive in neighbouring Myanmar more than two years ago.
Social distancing was all but impossible in such close quarters, and health experts said that only a vaccine will prevent widespread infection.
Despite scientists working flat out towards that aim, experts said that it could still be many months — or even years — away.
And without a robust roll-out plan, even highly developed countries could struggle to take advantage of any breakthrough.
In the US, the man formerly charged with developing a vaccine told lawmakers that the government in Washington had no ‘master plan’ to fight the pandemic and was unprepared to distribute enough vaccines to immunise millions of Americans.
