In a press briefing, officials said the virus outbreak is under control in the country and credited a robust surveillance network along with implementation of the lockdown and other containment measures for it.
According to the latest health department bulletin, the positivity rate has also jumped to 9.55 per cent, amid the festive season and the rise in pollution level.
For communities, inadequate shelter and overcrowding are risk factors in the transmission of diseases with epidemic potential such as COVID-19, the National Centre for Disease Control, which falls under the health ministry, said.
It is a landmark in China's over two-month-long fight against the deadly virus as the country continued to report coronavirus deaths till Sunday, especially from the epicentre Hubei province.
The government said the use of such masks will help in protecting the community at large
Three persons, including a mother-son duo, have tested positive for swine flu in the national capital, taking the number of H1N1 influenza cases reported in the city to 35 in 2014.
One more person has succumbed to swine flu in Hyderabad, taking the total number of deaths due to the disease this year in Telangana to 8.
Passengers should undergo RT-PCR test and be isolated in a separate unit of an institutional facility if found positive
'There is no data to show this virus is more deadlier.'
There is no current evidence from randomised controlled trial to recommend any specific treatment for suspected or confirmed patients with COVID-19.
The 106-year-old patient was discharged from the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) recently after recovering, where his wife, son and another family member also recuperated after contracting the novel coronavirus infection, they said.
'Americans develop diabetes when the body mass index is 30 and 35. We develop it when the BMI is only 25,' says diabetes expert Dr A Ramachandran.
The plans also state that highly suspected cases testing negative on Rapid Antigen Test should be examined again using the gold standard RT-PCR test.
People aged 45 and above account for about 88 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in India making them the most vulnerable section, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday, a day after the government opened up vaccinations for all those in the age bracket from April 1.
A rise in the number of daily COVID-19 cases and mortality has been observed in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, indicating the pandemic is moving eastwards, the Union health ministry said.
The minister said there has been no cases of Nipah reported from anywhere in the country
A US government study has found that what your parents always told you is correct. Marriage is good for you
Illustrious international thinkers met at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 and many discussions addressed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world at large.
Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh said the remaining 77 per cent are still vulnerable to the viral disease and containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.
Trump had taken the coronavirus test on Friday night. The results came out in less than 24 hours.
The Centre has asked states and union territories witnessing surge in new COVID-19 cases and high active caseload to continue with the strategy of 'test, track and treat' that had yielded rich dividends at the height of the pandemic and accelerate vaccination for priority population groups in districts reporting higher infections on mission mode.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has written to these states to draw their attention 'to the low and declining testing rates in the states, stating that any laxity at this crucial junction may squander the results of our collective actions in containing the transmission', according to a health ministry statement.
The Zika virus has already been found in some mosquitoes taken as samples from Sindhi Camp while few mosquitoes collected from densely populated Shastri Nagar had already been found to be carriers of the virus leading to suspicion they are behind the spread of the infection.
A total of 116 persons, who had come in contact with some of the infected persons, have been put under quarantine-- 94 in their homes and 22 in various hospitals, the sources said.
'We have the technical expertise, and international collaborations. We also have robust real-time data. We are a university of pandemic management. If the ministry neglects the role of NCDC, it is the loss of the country'
India has flattened its Covid-19 graph and 146 districts have reported no new case of the viral disease in the last seven days, 18 in 14 days, six in 21 days and 21 districts in the last 28 days, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday.
He not only recovered from COVID-19, he recovered faster than his son, who is also very old.
The Centre on Wednesday deployed multi-disciplinary teams in bird flu-affected areas of Kerala and Haryana, while Madhya Pradesh, where crows have died due to the influenza, banned the entry of chicken consignments from southern states for 10 days as a precautionary measure.
The ministry, however, said it could not be sufficiently established yet if these variants were behind the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in some states.
In a bid to stem the spread of the contagion, the authorities in Beijing have conducted the nucleic acid test on 29,386 people who had visited the Xinfadi wholesale market since May 30, Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Health Commission, said on Monday. The market became a hotspot after it reported several new COVID-19 cases. Out of all the samples, 12,973 came negative and the rest are awaiting results, Gao told the media.
Long-term exposure to chronically high PM2.5 levels weakens the ability of the lungs to fend off infections, therefore making people more susceptible to COVID-19, the scientists said.
"Lockdown and containment (measures) have been successful in keeping it low and preventing rapid spread," ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said, citing the sero-survey on COVID-19 spread.
How can we protect ourselves against superbugs?
Chairing the 19th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 through video-conference on Friday, Vardhan said India has achieved the milestone of more than 10 lakh recoveries, a recovery rate to 64.54 per cent.
A control room has also been set up and the Strategic Health Operations Centre (SHOC) of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has been activated, phone number for which is 011-23978046, a health ministry statement stated.
Several countries started screening travellers coming from China, especially from Wuhan to detect symptoms like fever.
The GoM was told that six states -- Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- account for 86 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 and 32 districts account for 80 per cent of such fatalities, the Union health ministry said.
The study noted that humans are not protected from the G4 virus by the immunity offered by other human influenza vaccine strains, indicating that there is no preexisting population immunity to the virus.
The authorities have mounted massive containment measures including mass testing of about 90,000 people
There has been an increase of 6 per cent to 50 per cent in prevalence of antibodies among people in various districts compared to the prevalence found in the previous survey
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