India Coronavirus Dispatch: Pandemic may hurt Malaria eradication progress

61% Indians know someone who died of Covid, will vaccine revive international travel, 22 experts on how to prevent future pandemics-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Covid-19 may set back progress made in eradicating malaria

Improved targeting of interventions and tools, such as insecticide-treated nets and preventive medicines, and increased funding can speed up efforts to eliminate malaria by 2030. In 2019, total funding reached $3 billion against a global target of $5.6 billion, but the Covid-19 pandemic burden on health systems and global economy is expected to be a further set back. Read more here

61% Indians know one or more people in their social circles who died of Covid, survey says

India has recorded a total of 1,40,573 Covid-19 deaths till date and a new survey has found that 61 per cent Indians know of one or more people who have succumbed to the infection. The survey by LocalCircles, a community social media platform, also noted that 44 per cent of its 16,000 respondents know of one or more individuals who are likely to have died due to coronavirus but their deaths were not labelled as Covid deaths. 

The survey revealed that people from tier 3 and tier 4 cities in India said it was still hard for them to believe that the pandemic was a reality and people were not wearing masks or observing physical distancing. Read more here

How to prevent future pandemics? 22 leading scientists tell us

Here’s the good news: we can prevent future pandemics. But only if we take steps to protect the environment and restore its natural defences, according to an international group of 22 leading scientists. The group says that, rather than tackling pandemic outbreaks after they occur, we should be acting now to prevent them through greater conservation efforts and ending the overexploitation of Earth’s resources. If no action is taken, the report says future pandemics will happen more often, spread faster and kill more people than Covid-19. The panel says the economic cost of the current pandemic is 100 times the estimated cost of preventing it by protecting nature. Read more here

Will a Covid-19 vaccine help revive international travel?

The UK yesterday became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for widespread use. Following a review by the country’s drug regulator, the UK government announced it will begin rolling out the vaccine next week. Other countries are likely to follow soon. The world has been eagerly awaiting a Covid vaccine, touted since early in the pandemic as our best hope of returning to “normal”. A big part of this is the resumption of international travel. Certainly, an effective vaccine brings this prospect much closer. But a vaccine alone won’t ensure a safe return to international travel. Read more here

Covid-19 vaccines will have side effects. Here’s why you should not worry about them

In 2021, hundreds of millions of people will be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. The success of that Covid-19 vaccination campaign will heavily depend on public trust that the vaccines are not only effective, but also safe. To build that trust, the medical and scientific communities have a responsibility to engage in difficult discussions with the public about the significant fraction of people who will experience temporary side effects from these vaccines. Simply put, receiving these vaccines will likely make a whole lot of people feel crappy for a few days. That is probably a good thing, and it is a far better prospect than long-term illness or death. Read more here

Centre has received nearly 40,000 corruption complaints related to Covid-19

The Centre has received nearly 40,000 complaints dealing with corruption related to Covid-19. The grievances of corruption, which are sorted according to ministries, include bribery, embezzlement of funds and harassment by government officials while dealing with Covid-19 cases. Read more here