A woman contact of an Omicron case in Rajasthan has been found COVID-19 positive in Delhi and is being shifted to the Lok Nayak Hospital, officials said on Friday.
India has recorded its first two deaths due to seasonal influenza subtype H3N2, one each from Karnataka and Haryana, with the Union health ministry on Friday saying it is keeping a close watch on the situation and cases are expected to decline from the month-end.
As concerns mounted and some people wondered whether this could possibly turn out to be another Covid, pulmonologist Anurag Agrawal said he doesn't expect to see a massive wave.
The new travel advisory came in the wake of the significant improvement in Covid situation in India.
Their samples have been sent to the National Centre for Disease Control for genome sequencing to ascertain if they have the new variant, Omicron, which has been classified as 'variant of concern' by the WHO.
Ninety-five per cent of samples from Delhi sequenced at the National Centre for Disease Control in the last six months were found infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus, government data showed.
According to sources, so far only one traveller from Canada having symptoms of monkeypox infection had been isolated.
Ministry of health and family welfare adds Hong Kong and Israel to the list of countries from where travellers would need to follow additional measures on arrival in India, including post-arrival testing considering the detection of new COVID variant 'Omicron' in South Africa.
The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium is closely tracking the new variant of COVID-19 called B.1.1.529 and its presence has not been detected in the country yet, officials said on Friday.
It is certain that the Chinese government was 'under-prepared' as it decided to end its zero-COVID policy abruptly after people held protests across the country, The Hong Kong Post reported.
They said after examining and analysing the adverse event reports, causal relationship and all related details shared by or to be shared by the WHO, the committee will advise and recommend further course of action to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).
These nine states and union territories are Haryana, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.
Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, warned that Beijing may experience a spike in severe COVID-19 cases over the next fortnight.
The average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 per cent of the fatalities were aged 65 or over, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
China has reported a spike in COVID-19 infections in Zhejiang Province which registered 138 locally-transmitted confirmed cases stated to be that of new Delta strain "sub-lineage AY.4", prompting authorities to bar millions of people in the eastern province from travelling.
In a letter to the states/UTs on Saturday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan requested them to disseminate the guideline document 'National Action Plan on Heat Related Illnesses' to all districts for effective management of cases of heatwave.
India has so far reported nine cases of monkeypox, including one death.
The double mutant variant, also known as B.1.617, is mostly dominating Maharashtra (761), West Bengal (124), Delhi (107) and Gujarat (102).
A person who returned to Kerala from abroad and was hospitalised after showing signs of monkeypox tested positive for the disease, state Health Minister Veena George said on Thursday.
We have applied for marketing authorisation to the EMA through AstraZeneca. We will not sell the vaccine in the EU, said a company source.
The exercise will be carried out jointly by the National Centre for Disease Control and the Delhi government and will be held till July 10.
This comes as flight services from the UK to India have been suspended till December 31 over the spread of a new strain of coronavirus in London and England.
The death of a 11-year-old boy due to 'bird-flu', even before the devastating effects of the second Covid wave have waned, has alarmed the medical fraternity though they assert that human-to-human transmission of H5N1 virus is extremely rare. The event has also put the Rs 90,000 crore domestic poultry industry which was seeing some uptick in demand after months of low sales last year into a spot of bother, as any curb on sale or production of eggs or chicken could have a devastating impact on its revenues. It is estimated that around 60 million people are directly impacted by the poultry sector in India. H5N1 virus, also commonly known as bird flu, is known to spread from chickens but other birds such as ducks and crow are also carriers of the virus.
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, who hails from Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, on Monday spoke with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan after scores of people including children were hospitalised with an undiagnosed illness.
Players will be banned from handing their towels to ball-kids at next week's BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, organisers said on Friday.
According to the NCDC, 415 cases of the UK strain of coronavirus were found in genomes sequenced in Delhi, followed by 23 cases of the South African strain.
The man had attended a stag party recently in Manali in Himachal Pradesh.
'Just put a patch on your arm and the vaccine can be absorbed by the body.'
A 39-year-old Chandigarh resident who had returned from South Africa a few days ago tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday and his sample will now be sent to Delhi for whole genome sequencing.
The Union health ministry on Friday urged eight states and Union Territories to take up immediate containment measures including preventing crowds, conducting widespread testing as well as increasing vaccine coverage on a priority basis in districts where the Delta Plus variant of coronavirus has been detected.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents and can cause varied disease syndromes in people worldwide, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is the leading national public health institute of the United States.
Expressing concern over the COVID-19 situation, the chief minister urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to widen the vaccination ambit to cover those younger than 60 as the mutant has been found to be infecting young people more, an official statement quoting him said.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday said that in case there were no guidelines issued by the Centre, it expected the city government to expeditiously consider the issue of early re-testing of international travellers who test positive for COVID-19 on arrival.
These include the 25 cases which were announced till Thursday. "All the 29 persons are in physical isolation in health facilities," an official said.
Six Covid-19 cases were reported on Wednesday after screening 3,476 passengers of 11 flights that arrived in India from "at-risk" countries and the samples have been sent for genomic sequencing, the Health Ministry said amid concerns over the 'Omicron' variant of coronavirus.
The B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV2, also being called a 'double mutant' or the 'Indian strain', has been found prevalent largely in Maharashtra and Delhi that have been severely hit by a devastating second wave of the pandemic.
Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. Genome sequencing on other specimens is going on, the ministry said.
All these persons have been kept in single room isolation in designated health care facilities by respective state governments.
The ministry said the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at the National Centre for Disease Control, one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani (near Kolkata), one at the National Institute of Virology Pune, seven at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences Hospital Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and one at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.
The government on Friday warned about the declining compliance to mask usage in the country amid concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and urged people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated to prevent surge in cases.
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