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France is weighing whether to give people previously infected with the coronavirus only one vaccine dose instead of two, a practice that if enacted here and followed by other countries could free up tens of millions of doses. “It’s likely that we’ll see similar moves elsewhere, given that we’re facing a shortage of vaccine doses,” said Tobias Kurth, the director of the Institute of Public Health at Berlin’s Charité hospital. (Noack, 2/18)

Brazil became the third country in the world to breach 10 million coronavirus cases, with infections picking up speed in recent weeks as a new variant spreads amid a shortage of vaccines. Latin America’s largest nation reported 51,879 new cases Thursday, pushing the total confirmed to 10,030,626, according to Health Ministry data. It’s a toll that lags only the U.S. and India. Deaths rose by 1,367 to 243,457, the second-highest globally. (Leite, Viotti Beck and Aragaki, 2/18)

World Health Organization investigators are honing their search for animals that could have spread the new coronavirus to humans, identifying two—ferret badgers and rabbits—that can carry the virus and were sold at a Chinese market where many early cases emerged. Members of a WHO team probing the pandemic’s origins say further investigation is needed into suppliers of those and other animals at the market, some of which came from a region of China near its Southeast Asian borders where the closest known relatives of the virus have been found in bats. (McKay, Page and Hinshaw, 2/18)

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Thursday it is sending a team of experts to Guinea and Congo to battle Ebola outbreaks there. Health authorities in Guinea declared an Ebola outbreak on Sunday after identifying three cases, the first outbreak there since the virus ravaged the country in 2016. There have also been four confirmed Ebola cases in Congo. (Axelrod, 2/18)

All schools in New Zealand will offer free sanitary products to students starting in June, officials said Thursday. The initiative, which aims to combat period poverty, expands on a pilot program that launched last year. In their announcement, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said the program is open to all primary, intermediate, secondary and kura, or Maori-language immersion schools. Arden said that providing free period products at schools is one way for the government to help address poverty, increase school attendance and support students' well-being. (Treisman, 2/18)

China is considering additional measures to increase its flagging birthrate, more than four years after ending its controversial one-child policy. For decades, China enforced strict controls on additional births in the name of preserving scarce resources for its burgeoning economy. But its plunging birthrate is now seen as a major threat to economic progress and social stability. On Thursday, the National Health Commission issued a statement saying it will conduct research to “further stimulate birth potential.” (2/19)