Factbox-Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) - Hong Kong will offer tax breaks, handouts and subsidies to small businesses and residents to mitigate the impact of the most stringent social restrictions imposed in the city to curb the spread of COVID-19, Finance Secretary Paul Chan said.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news.

EUROPE

* The Italian government will end the COVID-19 state of emergency on March 31, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Wednesday, promising a gradual return to normal after more than two years of the health crisis.

* Novavax Inc said on Wednesday it had started shipping doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to European Union member states, with France, Austria and Germany expected to be the first to receive the shots in the coming days.

* Switzerland will donate up to 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to other countries by the middle of this year, having secured more than enough to cover its own population of around 8.7 million, the government said on Wednesday.

AMERICAS

* The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned on Wednesday that the Caribbean was falling behind in its effort to fight COVID-19 as only 63% of its eligible population was vaccinated and large regional discrepancies persist.

* Colombia's government will no longer require the use of face masks outdoors in areas where more than 70% of the population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, President Ivan Duque said on Wednesday.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* The World Health Organization said on Wednesday it has set up a hub in South Korea to train low- and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines and therapies, and is expanding its COVID-19 vaccine project to a further five nations.

* Cambodia started vaccinating children as young as three against COVID-19 on Wednesday, becoming one of the first countries to cover the age group of those below five.

* Hong Kong authorities said they found COVID-19 in samples taken from the packaging of imports of frozen beef from Brazil and frozen pork skin from Poland, vowing to step up inspections of imported food.

AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

* Uganda plans to impose fines on people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who fail to pay could be sent to prison under a new public health law which lawmakers are scrutinising, parliament said.

* South Africa has changed its vaccination rules in an effort to encourage more people to get jabs, health authorities said.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Extending the interval between the first two doses of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the country to eight weeks for young men can reduce the rare risk of heart inflammation, U.S. health officials said.

* Antibodies triggered by a third dose of Sinopharm's COVID-19 shot given to those who completed its primary two-dose regimen dropped sharply after six months, and a fourth shot did not significantly boost them against Omicron, a Chinese study showed.

* Getting infected twice with two different Omicron coronavirus subvariants is possible, but rarely happens, a Danish study has found.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* British employers are turning more confident about the economy as the country gets over the disruption caused by the Omicron wave of coronavirus infections, a survey showed.

($1 = 0.7336 pounds)

(Compiled by Marta Frackowiak, Uttaresh.V and Shinjini Ganguli; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta and Maju Samuel)