Briefly

UNITED STATES

FDA to allow further overseas formula sales

The United States Food and Drug Administration is looking at ways to allow overseas manufacturers of baby formula to keep selling in the country beyond the current shortage, said the health regulator on Wednesday. The FDA in May said it would allow baby formula imports until Nov 14 to ease a shortage that has left parents scrambling to feed their babies. The US has tried to boost the supply of baby formula after regulators in February shuttered a Michigan plant run by Abbott over safety concerns. The plant reopened on June 4 after the company committed to additional sanitizing and safety protocols, but closed again in mid-June after severe weather caused damage to the plant.

NIGERIA

Hundreds of inmates freed after attack

A total of 443 inmates were on the run while four others died during an attack on Tuesday by unidentified gunmen on a prison in the Nigerian capital Abuja, said the country's prisons authority on Wednesday. Sixteen inmates and three prison guards were injured when the attackers stormed the custodial center in the Kuje area, southwest of Abuja, on Tuesday night, said Abubakar Umar, national spokesman for the Nigerian Correctional Service in a statement. A total of 994 inmates were at the facility before the late Tuesday attack, said the spokesman, noting 551 are currently in custody without giving the exact number of inmates that were recaptured.

GENEVA

Over 6,000 monkeypox cases reported: WHO

More than 6,000 cases of monkeypox have now been reported from 58 countries in the current outbreak, the World Health Organization said. The UN agency will reconvene a meeting of the committee that will advise on declaring the outbreak a global health emergency, the WHO's highest level of alert, in the week beginning July 18 or sooner, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference from Geneva. "I continue to be concerned by the scale and spread of the virus across the world," Tedros said. Around 80 percent of cases are in Europe, he said.

Agencies - Xinhua