Coronavirus: UAE reports 1,388 Covid-19 cases, 1,282 recoveries, 1 death

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on Thursday reported 1,388 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with 1,282 recoveries and 1 death.

Total active cases stand at 17,909.

The new cases were detected through 287,895 additional tests.

The total number of cases in UAE on July 21 are 978,966, while total recoveries stand at 958,728. The death toll now stands at 2,329.

Over 175.1 million PCR tests have been conducted in the country so far.

The head of the UN body promoting development is warning that the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the crisis in Ukraine have led to "an unprecedented reversal" of decades of progress in combatting global poverty and hunger and ensuring quality education for children everywhere.

Collen Kelapile, who is president of the Economic and Social Council known as ECOSOC, said there is growing concern that funding for critical UN development goals, including ending extreme poverty and hunger by 2030 might be neglected by Western donor nations supporting Ukraine militarily and financially in its attacks against Russia.

ECOSOC's message is: "Please, let's not forget other pre-existing challenges… We need to finance development. We need to finance climate. We need to finance many other conflicts around the world," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, The World Health Organization will reconvene its expert monkeypox committee on Thursday to decide whether the outbreak now constitutes a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound.

A second meeting of the WHO's emergency committee on the virus will be held to examine the evidence on the worsening situation, with nearly 14,000 cases reported from more than 70 countries.

A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.

Loyce Pace, the US assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said it was "very hard" for the world to handle monkeypox on top of Covid-19 and other health crises.

"I know it can be scary... and, frankly, exhausting," she told reporters at the US mission in Geneva.

However, "we know a lot more about this disease, we've been able to stop outbreaks previously and we, importantly, have medical counter-measures and other tools available."