Washington, June 24 (IANS) Millions of women in the US are expected to lose the legal right to abortion as the country's Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old ruling that legalised it nationwide.
The court struck down the landmark Roe vs Wade decision, weeks after an unprecedented leaked document suggested it favoured doing so, the BBC reported on Friday.
The judgement will transform abortion rights in the US, with individual states now able to ban the procedure.
Half of the US states are expected to introduce new restrictions or bans.
Thirteen have already passed so-called trigger laws that will automatically outlaw abortion following the Supreme Court's ruling.
A number of others are likely to pass new restrictions quickly.
In total, abortion access is expected to be cut off for about 36 million women of reproductive age, according to research from Planned Parenthood, a healthcare organisation that provides abortions.
Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. But in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, U.S., Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who hadn’t previously traveled to Africa.
Police found the victim off the side of a road with apparent gunshot wounds. The man died from his injuries at the scene and his identity is being withheld until his next of kin is notified, the police said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing that Pfizer's treatment was still too expensive. He noted that most countries in Latin America had no access to Pfizer’s drug, Paxlovid , which has been shown to cut the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization or death by up to 90%.
Paxlovid has become the go-to option against COVID-19 because of its at-home convenience and impressive results in heading off severe disease. The U.S. government has spent more than $10 billion to purchase enough pills to treat 20 million people.
About two dozen states reported suspected cases after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out a call for doctors to be on the lookout for surprising cases of hepatitis. The cases date back to late October in children under 10. So far, only nine cases in Alabama have been confirmed.
FDA officials said in a statement that they decided to restrict J&J's vaccine after taking another look at data on the risk of life-threatening blood clots within two week of vaccination.
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