* Europe's choppy vaccine rollout hit more trouble on Wednesday after US drugmaker Johnson & Johnson delayed its COVID-19 shot and Denmark said it would drop a similar vaccine from AstraZeneca over the risk of blood clotting.

* Denmark became the first country to stop using AstraZeneca's vaccine altogether, following news of its possible link to very rare blood clot cases, while Finland extended the pause in use of the shot for people under 65.

* German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced opposition to a plan to seek new powers to force lockdowns on areas with high infection rates.

* Portugal will do its best to avoid visitors having to quarantine on arrival this summer, its secretary of state for tourism said.

* Spain is confident it can maintain its vaccination targets despite the United States suspending the J&J shot and delays to its European rollout over clotting concerns.

AMERICAS

* Top US health officials urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying US regulators' pause on J&J shots, following reports it can cause blood clotting, should boost confidence in the vaccines' safety.

* Brazil's richest and most populous state, Sao Paulo, has warned its ability to care for seriously ill COVID-19 patients is on the verge of collapse as it runs perilously low on key drugs, according to a letter to the federal government.

* Argentine President Alberto Fernandez was given his medical all-clear after testing positive earlier in April, though he never displayed more than mild symptoms and continued to work through a period of isolation.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Anti-Doping accreditations for the Tokyo Olympics have been cut due to COVID-19 but the core management team in charge of delivering a drug-free Games will remain intact, the head of the International Testing Agency told Reuters.

* India's new infections hit a record level on Wednesday with Mumbai set to be locked down at midnight, but hundreds of thousands of pilgrims still thronged to a religious festival in the north of the country.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* South Africa has agreed to onerous conditions like non-refundable downpayments to secure vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, its health minister said, describing the terms vaccine manufacturers had demanded as "difficult and sometimes unreasonable".

* A bid to secure more Pfizer/BioNTech doses for Israel's world-beating vaccination drive has become mired in political squabbles, just as its leaders saw the coveted prize of "herd immunity" as within reach.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* A US health advisory panel began a review of six reported cases of rare blood clots in women who received J&J's vaccine, a day after federal regulators paused its use to assess the issue.

* Moderna met with Nexus Pharmaceuticals to discuss manufacturing the shot at the company's new plant in Wisconsin, which can process and fill 30 million doses a month, sources said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Major global stock indexes scaled new peaks on Wednesday before shedding gains that anticipated a strong recovery from the pandemic, while the dollar dipped to three-week lows as Treasury yields held below recent highs.

* The US economic recovery accelerated to a moderate pace from late February to early April as more consumers, buoyed by increased COVID-19 vaccinations and strong fiscal support, spent more on travel and other goods, the Federal Reserve reported.

* Germany's economic institutes will cut their joint 2021 growth forecast for Europe's largest economy to 3.7 per cent from 4.7 per cent previously due to a longer than expected lockdown, two people familiar with the decision told Reuters.

GLOBAL:

DEATHS: 2,983,110

CASES: 138,743,919

RECOVERED: 111,450,563

Australian Associated Press