FIFA is in talks with Qatari authorities about scrapping the mandatory vaccination requirements for next year's World Cup.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani announced in June that it would require any fans wanting entry into next year's tournament to be fully inoculated against the coronavirus, but has said nothing about the policy for players yet.

The European Union's drug regulator gave its backing Monday to administering booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older.

The European Medicines Agency said the booster doses "may be considered at least 6 months after the second dose for people aged 18 years and older."

FIFA offered direct encouragement for footballers to get vaccinated on Sunday.

The first clear statement of its kind from world football's governing body came as players were flying to countries for men's World Cup qualifiers.

New Zealand's government acknowledged Monday what most other countries did long ago: It can no longer completely get rid of the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a cautious plan to ease lockdown restrictions in Auckland, despite an outbreak there that continues to simmer.

U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck says it will seek authorization of its oral drug molnupiravir for Covid-19 after it was shown to reduce the chance newly infected patients were hospitalized by 50 percent.

U.S. fatalities from Covid-19 have surpassed 700,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, a toll roughly equivalent to the population of the nation's capital Washington.

Afghanistan's health system is on the verge of collapse, a top Red Cross official warned Thursday, saying more than 2,000 health facilities had been shuttered across the conflict-ravaged country.

She lived a life of adventure that spanned two continents. She fell in love with a World War II fighter pilot, barely escaped Europe ahead of Benito Mussolini's fascists, ground steel for the U.S. war effort and advocated for her disabled daughter in a far less enlightened time. She was, her daughter said, someone who didn't make a habit of giving up.

And then this month, at age 105, Primetta Giacopini's life ended the way it began — in a pandemic.

The top diplomat of Yemen's internationally recognized government said Monday his conflict-torn country needs millions more coronavirus vaccines to ensure some of the world's poorest are not left behind.

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak said the roughly 1 million doses Yemen was given are not enough to vaccinate even the most vulnerable portions of its population.

In Iran's holy city of Qom, where Shiite scholars study and pilgrims travel to a shrine believed to be a gate to heaven, the Islamic Republic's coronavirus outbreak began and still rages to this day.

While Iran works to vaccinate its 80 million people, many in Qom have not sought out the shots, authorities say. In one recent week, the city administered only 17,000 shots daily out of its capacity of 30,000, provincial health department chief Mohammad Reza Qadir said.