At least 53 people have died following floods, landslides and other accidents caused by Typhoon Vamco in the Philippines, police and disaster officials said on Saturday.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that countries urgently need a system for sharing medical samples and a central storage facility for pathogens, UN health chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday in Geneva.

Finance ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies (G20) have formally endorsed a framework aimed at addressing developing countries’ debt on a case-by-case approach, they said in a statement on Friday.

Typhoon Vamco blew out of the Philippines on Friday, leaving behind 42 dead and 20 missing after landslides and the worst flooding in years, including in the capital Manila, police and disaster relief officials said.

The Vatican has been offering free coronavirus swab tests as part of its charity for the poor in Rome, it said in a statement on Thursday.

Top Democrats in the US Congress on Thursday called on Republicans to accept President Donald Trump’s election defeat and to focus instead on addressing the surging coronavirus pandemic.

Democrats will have a smaller majority in the House next year after a campaign in which they tried to expand the battlefield deeper into Republican territory only to see districts won two years ago snap back to their GOP leanings.

The European Commission on Wednesday proposed the creation of a new European Health Union in light of fractured EU government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.