"Dr Manmohan Singh, soon after becoming the prime minister, had himself carried a small table for us to have tea comfortably at his Safdarjung Lane residence instead of asking his house help," Dr Srinath Reddy, who was the chairperson of the PM's medical panel, recalled.
Dr Guleria was appointed as the director for a term of five years on March 28, 2017.
As India witnessed the highest number of Covid cases in over four months, former All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director Dr Randeep Guleria on Wednesday said the new XBB.1.16 variant could be driving the recent rise but emphasised there was no need for panic as long it does not cause severe illness and deaths.
'We should hope that things are not as bad as in the United Kingdom'
Dr Randeep Guleria, Professor of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's personal physician, answers your questions about Dengue.
The tenure of the incumbent AIIMS director, Dr Randeep Guleria, which was set to end on March 24, was extended by three months.
If people are careful and India is able to vaccinate a large number of population, then the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic may not even come, said All India Institute of Medical Sciences Director Dr Randeep Guleria on Thursday.
The teams will visit the districts reporting high number of COVID cases and support the state's efforts towards strengthening containment, surveillance, testing, infection prevention and control measures, and efficient clinical management of positive cases.
According to some experts, there is not much difference in the number of seasonal flu cases and that of COVID-19, even though they stressed that surveillance for newer variants should continue in the off chance of a new lineage of coronavirus catching the country off guard.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday told Bharatiya Janata Party MPs that Covid vaccination for children is likely to start soon, sources said.
As of Friday, Gujarat's COVID-19 count stood at 7,403 cases, of which 5,260 were from Ahmedabad district alone, while of the 449 deaths in the state, 343 were from the city.
The presence of spike protein facilitates a virus' entry into the host cell and is responsible for making it transmissible and causing infection.
The 93-year-old leader was admitted to the hospital on June 11.
Healthcare workers at the frontline of India's COVID-19 battle got their first jabs after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the world's biggest drive via video conferencing.
The current Covid situation in India is under control and there are no reasons to panic, said Dr N K Arora, the chairperson of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI).
India Today ranks the best colleges in the country.
The Indian Olympic Association secretary general Rajeev Mehta on Monday requested the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to expedite the process for the vaccination of the country's Tokyo Olympic-bound athletes and officials against COVID-19.
"One CT scan is equivalent to 300 to 400 chest x-rays. According to data, repeated CT scans in younger age groups increase the risk of cancer in later life. Exposing yourself to radiation again and again may cause damage. So, there is no point in doing CT scan in mild COVID-19 if the oxygen saturation is normal," Guleria said.
According to the AIIMS director, there are 10-15 per cent of people who may witness severe infection and may need extra medicines like Remdesivir, oxygen or plasma. Less than five per cent of patients need to be operated on a ventilator, he informed.
'Viral infections rise in winter and better care needs to be taken in the next few months.'
On Monday, around 5,000 nurses of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi went on a strike over their long pending demands, including those with regard to the Sixth Central Pay Commission.
The states were advised to conduct surveillance and report district-wise severe acute respiratory illness and influenza-like illness cases on a daily basis and also to send these for genome sequencing to the mapped INSACOG laboratories.
But the numbers have continued to rise in 23 states including Bihar, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
'It was of no use if given early in mild and asymptomatic patients and also if administered too late'
Zydus Cadila COVID-19 vaccine for children above 12 years is expected to be available by August as its trials are likely to be completed by July-end, said Dr N K Arora, Chairman, National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI).
In phase I, the vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers and the maximum of 100 of them would be from AIIMS.
As India grappled with a raging second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the government on Monday stressed on observing COVID-19 appropriate behaviours.
'Since the Covid virus has a tendency to mutate, we can continue to expect new variants of the virus to emerge and keep circulating and recirculating in the communities.'
The COVID-19 vaccines can be "tweaked" to provide protection against new variants of the virus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said.
The government also said the coronavirus tracking app Aarogya Setu is secure as it has been designed keeping in mind the privacy of people and is playing a crucial role in India's fight against COVID-19.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the nurses administering the COVID-19 vaccine to him on Monday whether they were planning to use some special thick needle as politicians are known to be 'very thick-skinned', drawing laughter from the medical staff who immediately felt at ease.
These kinds of assumptions to be used for a nation of India's size and "to put us in poor light is not desirable"
About 50 countries, including Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and Panama, have shown interest in having a Co-WIN like system to run their vaccination drive, a senior official said on Monday, adding India is ready to share the open source software free of cost.
Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise 'unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day'.
"Lives of another 60 'sickest' patients at risk. Major crisis likely," he said.
'There is no data to show this virus is more deadlier.'
They stressed that classification of cases into mild, moderate and severe categories based just on respiratory symptoms should be relooked to include other organ involvement.
'All actions for COVID-19 should be the same as for other routine health conditions.' 'There is no need to report the matter in the media all the time; not on front page please.'
The government said it had been evaluating the implementation of the decentralised model of vaccination since its launch on May 1 and that the decision to centralise it again was taken after detailed deliberations and following requests by some states, amid claims by the Opposition that the policy change was due to the Supreme Court's intervention.
The AIIMS administration has initiated an internal inquiry to look into the cause of the fire and further strengthen preventive measure.
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