According to the scientists, sewage leaking into natural watercourses might lead to infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via airborne spray.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
Scientists have identified antibodies that neutralise Omicron and other variants of coronavirus by targeting areas that remain essentially unchanged as the virus mutates.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the status of passengers coming from the UK to India and found positive in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Goa, Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala and their response measures in a meeting held through video conferencing.
This new trial, a single-blind, randomised Phase II trial, will enrol 300 volunteers, with up to 240 of these volunteers receiving the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine and the remainder a control meningitis vaccine, which has been shown to be safe in children but is expected to produce similar reactions, such as a sore arm.
All people who have arrived in Saudi Arabia from European countries, as well as other states where the new coronavirus strain has emerged, will have to self-isolate at home for two weeks. Those who have visited these countries in the past three months will need to get tested for Covid-19, according to SPA.
This doctor couple put their faith in India. And in return India has put faith in them.
The study will provide information about the spread of the infection and also throw light on herd immunity.
Women who receive the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy pass high levels of antibodies to their babies, according to a study.
Nobel laureate Peter Doherty says his 'big worry' is there could be refusals for other vaccines if doubts over its safety turn out to be true.
The highly virulent 'Delta plus' variant of the novel coronavirus could stoke a third wave in Maharashtra, according to a presentation made at a meeting attended by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The research found that the device accurately detected a set of positive samples in under 5 minutes.
Researchers at McGill University in Canada carried out a survey of 28 experts working in vaccinology in late June 2020. The majority of those surveyed were mostly Canadian or American academics with an average of 25 years of experience working in the field.
Over the last four days, the Indian arm of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech have applied to the Drugs Controller General of India seeking emergency use authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccines.
The study, which was conducted on more than 100 healthcare workers at three centres in India including Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, found that the B.1.617.2 Delta variant not only dominates vaccine-breakthrough infections with higher respiratory viral loads compared to non-Delta infections (Ct value of 16.5 versus 19) but also generates greater transmission among the fully vaccinated HCWs.
Since the trial participants were not exposed to the coronavirus after vaccination, the scientists said it is not possible for the current study to determine the efficacy of the candidate vaccine.
The assurance comes as India's Covid graph dips -- on Friday 1,109 new coronavirus infections were reported -- and also one case of a new Covid strain in Mumbai.
India reported an 18 per cent decrease in the new COVID-19 cases along with a 13 per cent decline in the number of deaths during the week of October 11 to 17, the World Health Organisation has said, highlighting that all the regions globally, except the European region, reported a fall in new weekly cases of the deadly virus.
While bats are the ancestral hosts to many deadly viruses affecting humans such as Ebola, rabies, and the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the flying mammals themselves tolerate these pathogens without ill effects
COVAXIN, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, has got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India
'Social distancing, wearing masks and hygiene should be practised more strictly.'' 'People should not assemble in close spaces as the micro droplets may hang in the air and can last for a longer time.'
Phase-I clinical trials have revealed "excellent safety" of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd and their immunogenicity testing is now in progress, minister of state for health Ashwini Choubey informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Trump had said that he worked on removing a large number of bureaucratic obstacles to fast-track development and approval of a vaccine.
The civil aviation ministry had last week suspended all flights between the European country and India from December 23 to December 31 as a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected there.
After breaching the value of 1 in the first week of August, the R number, which reflects how rapidly the coronavirus pandemic is spreading, has been steadily ebbing, according to researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai.
Though Covid cases are rising in Delhi and its satellite towns, the focus should be on hospital admissions that have remained the same or changed just marginally, say several scientists, underscoring that the uptick is not an indication of a fourth wave in the country at this point.
'Technology is streamliming the entire process of aid distribution and making it transparent and digital.'
The affected nurse is being treated and is recovering well, junior foreign minister V Muraleedharan said. Meanwhile, China has locked down five cities, including Wuhan, suspending all public transport in an unprecedented move to contain the coronavirus that has infected over 630 people and left 17 others dead.
The new vaccine candidate, DIOS-CoVax2, uses banks of genetic sequences of all known coronaviruses, including those from bats, believed to be the natural hosts of many relatives of human coronaviruses.
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.
The study also shows that levels of these antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the virus are lower with increasing age, and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a booster dose to vulnerable people.
"Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Friday, a day after he was tested positive for COVID-19.
Chairperson of the COVID Task Force for All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr Naveet Wig on Thursday said that the COVID-19 crisis is 'a dynamic situation' and to prevent a third wave of the pandemic, there is a need to keep changing strategies.
Thackeray directed officials to ensure that people follow health norms like wearing masks, and that violators be fined.
To keep up with the COVID guidelines, the site has imprinted norms saying not more than 5,000 visitors are allowed in a day. Also, group photographs are not at all encouraged. Guards are keeping strict vigil so that tourists do not touch the railing and walls of the monument and used tissue paper, mask, gloves shoe covers are dumped in the dustbin.
The most common symptoms were fatigue, post-exertional malaise -- worsening of symptoms after physical or mental exertion -- and cognitive dysfunction, often called brain fog.
The R-value, which reflects how rapidly coronavirus pandemic is spreading, has sharply risen close to 1.2 over the last fortnight, mainly driven by cases in states like Kerala and Maharashtra, say researchers.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they have concluded phase 3 study of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2, meeting all primary efficacy endpoints.
Only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from January 8 and this arrangement will continue till January 23, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said on Friday.
