US President Joe Biden's claim in a TV interview that "the pandemic is over" has triggered a sell-off, wiping over $10 billion off the market value of the main Covid-19 vaccine makers. Investors are worried about public apathy towards Covid and the resulting impact on demand for vaccines and boosters.

US health officials have approved updates to COVID-19 vaccines that target the latest strains of the omicron variant. The tweaked booster shots could be available in the coming days.

Afghanistan is the world's top producer of opium and the illegal drug trade has helped finance the ruling Taliban. Over the past decades, millions of Afghans have fallen into drug addiction. The Taliban now claim they want to eradicate the use of narcotics. When they were in power from 1996 to 2001, the fundamentalists had banned poppy cultivation. But the intervention of US-led troops in 2001 relaunched opium production. Today, it remains permitted and is even intensifying in a country on the brink of economic collapse. Our team on the ground reports.

Low COVID-19 vaccination rates in Africa Cup of Nations host Cameroon and a fourth wave of the coronavirus across much of the continent could make for sparsely-attended matches when the soccer finals kick off on Sunday. Cameroon announced last month that it would require spectators at Africa's premiere soccer competition to be fully vaccinated and show a negative test result before entering stadiums.

As the Omicron variant of Covid-19 continues to drive new infections around the world, Israel has become one of the first countries to start rolling out a fourth dose of the vaccine. The so-called "second" booster jab is currently available to the over-60s, health workers and anyone considered medically vulnerable.

Instead, mRNA vaccines use mRNA created in a laboratory to teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

FRANCE 24 spoke to the EU's Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton about several issues, including the threat of the omicron Covid-19 variant worldwide; the possibility of easing intellectual property rules on vaccines to get more doses out to lower-income countries; and the state of relations between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Vaccine equity campaigners have long warned the EU that sharing doses was essential to prevent new variants emerging. EU countries made big promises on vaccine donations, but have so far struggled to deliver. Why?

The lockdown starting Monday is expected to last 10 days and a vaccine mandate is set to start in February. Data shows the seven-day incidence rate in the country at around 1,000 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Tens of millions of working Americans will need to be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19 by early January under new government rules. Companies that fail to comply could be fined thousands of dollars.

A new lockdown has come into effect in and around Moscow. Only a third of the Russian population is fully vaccinated. Experts blame a widespread distrust of the authorities. Why do so many Russians remain skeptical?

As Africa struggles to stem vaccine inequity, biotechnology giants BioNTech and Moderna have announced plans to build factories on the continent.