Page 23 - Coronavirus

Delivering Covid vax to respiratory tract may give better protection: Study

Delivering the COVID-19 vaccine directly to the respiratory tract -- the primary site of entry inS-CoV-2 infection -- may lead to improved protection against the disease, a study in monkeys has found. The global COVID-19 vaccination campaign saved an estimated 20 million lives, researchers said. However, while current COVID-19 vaccines provide protection against developing severe disease, they do little to prevent infection and transmission, they said. "The failure of the current generation ofS-CoV-2 vaccines delivered by the intramuscular (IM) route to block infection likely relates to their inability to induce robust mucosal immune responses at the portal of entry," said study corresponding author Dan H. Barouch, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), US. "In this study, we demonstrated that novel immunisation strategies can markedly increase mucosal immunity in non-human primates and improve protective efficacy against a mucosal virus challenge," Barouch said. The .

Is MGNREGA work demand real sign of distress or problem lies elsewhere?

In FY23, around 87.5 million people worked under the scheme, according to the MGNREGA website. Till December 12 in FY24, approximately 72.6 million people had worked under the scheme

Hospital industry set to grow at 12% CAGR driven by post-pandemic recovery

This surge in growth has led to an increase in capital expenditure within the hospital industry

Air passenger traffic continues to grow, reaches 98.2% of pre-Covid levels

Domestic traffic for Oct '23 was also up 33.7% when compared with the same period last year. This was driven by the triple-digit percentage growth in China

DGCA gives women wings: Plans 2024 framework to boost participation

About 15 per cent of Indian pilots are women, the highest globally. Vikram Dev Dutt noted that within the DGCA, 11 per cent of the workforce consists of women

Link between Covid-19 vaccines and heart attacks? Here's what govt said

A study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has observed that COVID-19 vaccination did not increase the risk of unexplained sudden death among young adults in India, the government informed Parliament on Friday. In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said post hospitalisation due to COVID-19, the family history of sudden death and certain lifestyle behaviours increased the likelihood of unexplained sudden deaths. The minister was responding to a question on whether there has been any reported instance of a linkage between Covid vaccination and incidents of heart attacks in the country. Sudden deaths have been reported in some people after they contracted Covid, but sufficient evidence is not available to confirm the cause of such deaths, Mandaviya said. To ascertain the facts regarding the apprehension of a rising number of cardiac arrest cases after Covid, the ICMR's National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) ...

Chronic fatigue syndrome more common than some past studies suggest: CDC

Health officials on Friday released the first nationally representative estimate of how many US adults have chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's number is larger than previous studies have suggested, and is likely boosted by some of the patients with long COVID. The condition clearly "is not a rare illness, said the CDC's Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report's co-authors. Chronic fatigue is characterized by at least six months of severe exhaustion not helped by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog and other symptoms that can get worse after exercise, work or other activity. There is no cure, and no blood test or scan to enable a quick diagnosis. Doctors have not been able to pin down a cause, although research suggests it is a body's prolonged overreaction to an infection or other jolt to the immune system. The condition rose to prominence nearly 40 years ago, when clusters of cases were reported in Incline Village, ...

Boris Johnson rejects notion he wanted to let Covid rip through population

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in sometimes angry testimony to Britain's inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic, on Thursday defended himself against suggestions that his indifference and failure to heed the advice of scientists led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. In a second day of sworn testimony, Johnson rejected claims that he was prepared to let older people die to protect the economy and that he was too slow to order a second national lockdown as infection rates began to rise in the autumn of 2020. Johnson, who left parliament after he was found to have misled lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties during his premiership, said he learned about the horrors of COVID-19 firsthand when he was hospitalised with the disease in March 2020. In the intensive care unit, Johnson said he was surrounded not by elderly people but by middle-aged men like himself. I knew from that experience what an appalling disease this is. I had absolutely no personal doubt about that from March .

7 test +ve at AIIMS Delhi for pneumonia pathogen, govt denies link to China

'Media reports claiming detection of bacterial cases in AIIMS Delhi linked to the recent surge in Pneumonia cases in China are misleading and inaccurate,' says health ministry

Ex-UK PM Boris Johnson admits mistakes but defends Covid record at inquiry

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his handling of COVID-19 on Wednesday at a public inquiry into the pandemic, saying the government got some things wrong but did its best. Johnson began two days of being grilled under oath by lawyers for the judge-led inquiry about his initial reluctance to impose a national lockdown in early 2020 and other fateful decisions. Johnson opened his testimony with an apology for the pain and the loss and the suffering of the COVID victims, though not for any of his own actions. Four people stood up in court as he spoke, holding signs saying: The Dead can't hear your apologies," before being escorted out by security staff. Inevitably, in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms on either side of the decision, we may have made mistakes, Johnson said. Inevitably, we got some things wrong. I think we were doing our best at the time. Johnson had arrived at the inquiry venue

India seeks 5 yr patent waiver for Covid diagnostics, therapeutics from WTO

India is among eight other developing nations pushing for a patent waiver that has already been authorised for the use of the Covid-19 vaccine

Foreign tourist arrivals in India yet to reach pre-Covid levels: Reddy

Foreign tourist arrivals in India are yet to reach the pre-COVID-19 levels, with 85.9 lakh of them visiting the country in 2022. According to the data of foreign tourist visits (FTVs) during the 2018-2022 period, which was presented in the Lok Sabha on Monday, 2.88 crore foreign tourists visited India in 2018 and the number increased to 3.14 crore in 2019. However, in 2020, the footfall was 71.7 lakh and it further fell to 10.5 lakh in 2021. In 2022, 85.9 lakh foreigners visited the country. The data was presented along with a written reply to a question by Union Tourism and Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy. On whether the tourism ministry is contemplating to launch pilgrim tourism circuits in various parts of the country, Reddy said under its schemes, such as "Swadesh Darshan", "Prashad' (Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive)" and "Assistance to Central Agencies", the ministry provides financial assistance to the states and Union territories for the ..

Experts warn of Covid spike in Kerala as vaccine-induced immunity wanes

Kerala now has 194 active cases, accounting for 61 per cent of the active cases in India

'Pandemic is still alive; need to extend TRIPS waiver to Covid diagnostics'

Four countries, including India and South Africa, have asked the WTO members to extend patent waiver to Covid-19 diagnostics and therapeutics as the pandemic is still alive and the risk of new variants remains real, an official said. These four member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) raised the demand in an informal meeting of TRIPS (Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Council in Geneva on Wednesday, the official said. In June last year, members of the WTO agreed to grant a temporary patent waiver for the manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines for five years. It was also agreed to start talks on including therapeutics and diagnostics, as proposed by India and South Africa, under the purview of this waiver. The proponents of the proposal for extension argued that a decision on this was long overdue and should be taken at the General Council (GC) meeting of the WTO in December. This would also complement and support the work of the WHO (World Health ...

US life expectancy rose in 2022, but remains below its pre-pandemic level

US life expectancy rose last year by more than a year but still isn't close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2022 rise was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said on Wednesday. But even with the large increase, US life expectancy is only back to 77 years, 6 months about what it was two decades ago. Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming the death rates at that time hold constant. The snapshot statistic is considered one of the most important measures of the health of the US population. The 2022 calculations released Wednesday are provisional, and could change a little as the math is finalized. For decades, US life expectancy rose a little nearly every year. But about a decade ago, the trend flattened and even declined some years a stall blamed largely on overdose deaths and suicides. Then came the coronavirus, which has killed

China pneumonia outbreak: No spike in respiratory diseases in India yet

With winters usually signalling the onset of the flu season in India, there has been an increase in people taking vaccinations for flu and pneumonia

China warns of surge in respiratory illness after mystery disease hits kids

The steady rise in pneumonia among children in kindergartens and primary schools flooded hospitals this month and prompted the World Health Organization to make an inquiry with Beijing

Mystery of 40,000 manufacturers disappearing from tax data amid Covid-19

Companies' share in overall corporate profit has declined as India tries to boost sector

Luxury homes the new realty in India: Sales surge 97% in nine months

The trend is expected to continue especially among the non-resident Indians (NRIs) and certain category of millennials with high disposable income

China health ministry for more fever clinics to combat mystery illness

Both SARS and Covid-19 were first reported as unusual types of pneumonia