�������ýҕ�l

After five weeks of declining coronavirus deaths, the number of fatalities reported globally increased by 4% last week, according to the World Health Organization. In its weekly assessment of the pandemic issued on Thursday, the U.N. health agency said there were 8,700 COVID-19 deaths last week, with a 21% jump in the Americas and a 17% increase in the Western Pacific. (6/16)

The World Trade Organization approved a politically important deal Friday to water down intellectual property restrictions for the manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines after an almost two-year effort involving scores of high-level meetings and much political arm twisting. During the early morning hours in Geneva, WTO ministers approved a package of agreements that included the vaccine patent waiver, which Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala previously said was necessary to end the “morally unacceptable” inequity of access to Covid-19 vaccines. (Baschuk, 6/17)

More than half of the 40,000 ventilators the Canadian government ordered early in the pandemic are now sitting unused in the federal emergency stockpile. Just over 2,000 of the ventilators have been deployed, either in Canada or abroad. Ottawa is now working to cancel orders for ventilators that have yet to be delivered, but won’t say how much it has paid for the machines. (Forrest, 6/16)

For more than a year, media reports kept Italians up-to-date on the travails of a 44-year-old man known only as “Mario” as he sought to end his life through physician-assisted suicide. Paralyzed 12 years ago in a traffic accident, “Mario” faced a series of legal, bureaucratic and financial hurdles in his pursuit of death. On Thursday, “Mario,” identified for the first time by his real name, Federico Carboni, ended his life, becoming Italy’s first legal assisted suicide, in his home in the central Italian port town of Senigallia. (Povoledo, 6/16)

A punishing heat wave is underway in parts of Western Europe, with widespread temperatures near or above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) expected through the weekend. Heat is expected to peak in France on Saturday and center over Germany by Sunday, but Spain, Poland and Austria will all feel abnormally high temperatures for the next few days. (Livingston, 6/16)

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released its most comprehensive review of the world's mental health in over 20 years with an action plan that every WHO state member has signed to transform mental health care, according to a recent press release. "Everyone’s life touches someone with a mental health condition. Good mental health translates to good physical health and this new report makes a compelling case for change," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Sudhakar, 6/16)