The first nationwide mock drill was held on January 2 which, the health ministry said, helped to iron out any glitches in the final execution and further refinement of the operational procedures.
'If you can simplify the technology, you don't need a doctor or a highly qualified technician to work on the technology; even an Asha health worker or a similar front line health worker can use it with minimal training.'
The renowned pulmonologist, who was part of the national COVID task force, highlighted the need for research on developing vaccines which will cover not only the current circulating strains but also from the emerging variants.
'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'
Vardhan stated the government is taking full precautions in human trials of vaccines and the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 under the chairmanship of Dr V K Paul, member-health, NITI Aayog, is drawing up a detailed strategy on how to immunize the majority of the population.
As India prepares to launch its vaccine drive on January 16, here is a look at the options:
When a person gets an infection even after being vaccinated against it, it is called a breakthrough case.
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.
'When I was toying with 10 different ideas, my father was diagnosed with lung fibrosis and his condition deteriorated so badly that we lost him in six months. He was very unsatisfied with the lack of proper diagnosis.' 'It made me think will anyone do a biopsy if there is no symptom? Why is it that we do not have any non-invasive diagnostic method?' 'This idea was the strongest out of the ten, and with Snahlata Singh with her cancer biology background joining me, the idea got a real boost.'
In phase I, the vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers and the maximum of 100 of them would be from AIIMS.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
Within three weeks of lifting its mask mandate, the Delhi government on Friday made masks mandatory at public places with immediate effect, and imposed a fine of Rs 500 for any violation as coronavirus cases rise in the city again.
According to a study, fathers play a key role in helping their young daughters overcome loneliness.
According to a Lancet study an estimated 15.6 million abortions took place in India in 2015, of which about half of the pregnancies were unintended.
The country's GDP is likely to grow at 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020-21 and may see a contraction of around 7.3 per cent for the full financial year, according to an SBI research report 'Ecowrap'. The e-National Statistical Office (NSO) will release the GDP estimates for the March 2021 quarter and provisional annual estimates for the year 2020-21 on May 31. "Based on our 'nowcasting model', the forecasted GDP growth for Q4 would be around 1.3 per cent (with downward bias) as against NSO (National Statistical Office) projection of a negative (-)1 per cent," the research report said.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
The government said it looks at such studies with due respect but it is yet to examine whether this particular report has a scientific worth or not.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
As the Omicron strain spreads across the globe and questions on vaccine inequity dominate discussions, scientists are still scrambling to learn more about emerging variants of the deadly virus that has claimed millions of lives and crippled economies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Britain has seen India and the UK agreeing on Rs 90,000 crore deals.
ICMR's serological survey, whose findings will be made public next week, suggests that the rate of contagion may be a lot higher in most-affected cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune.
India has purchased 500 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, one billion from the United States company Novavax and 100 million doses of the Sputnik V candidate from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, according to the US-based Duke University Global Health Innovation Center.
'Never believed that we humans have the capability at this time to create such a virus'
The 'Raj Bhavan/Nakkeeran Gopal case', in which editor S Gopal was arrested in the morning and set free by the court in the afternoon, is not the first one where the Tamil Nadu's once-reputed police force is seen as faltering in the eye of the law, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
'Between its natural immunity with Delta, in so many populations, and then getting on top of the vaccination (situation), I do not think India is going to have another bad wave.'
I got to know that every referred case for angiography and angioplasty got a kickback of Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively. Seeing this trend, doctors started paying referring doctors Rs 1 lakh in advance and adjusting it as and when patients came in. This menace slowly spread its tentacles all over the medical field, including radiological diagnostics and biochemistry laboratories. For every test ordered, 20 per cent of the bill was given back to the referring doctor. This led to doctors recommending unnecessary tests. The pharmaceutical companies also saw burgeoning business. Acclaimed doctors were given televisions sets, refrigerators, air conditioners and cars depending upon the prescriptions. General practitioners would prescribe unnecessary drugs, and were given returns in cash. A fascinating excerpt from Dr Upendra Kaul's When The Heart Speaks.
Groundbreaking HIV researcher Dr Suniti Solomon, the first to bring to the world the prevalence of the infection in India in 1986 and one who successfully led research into the treatment of the deadly virus, passed away at her residence in Chennai on Tuesday.
India has the fourth highest number of malaria cases in the world.
The NTAGI has also stated that those having laboratory test proven SARS-CoV-2 illness should defer COVID-19 vaccination for six months after recovery, the sources said.
As the global debate on booster shots gathers momentum, several scientists in New Delhi said the priority must be to ensure that more people are inoculated with at least their first jab.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,01,62,738 pushing the national COVID-19 recovery rate to 96.53 per cent.
In India, as elsewhere, veganism has spawned an industry of plant-based products such as tofu, tempeh, peanut curd, cashew cheese, almond butter, flax eggs, sauerkraut, seitan, mock meats, apple honey, vegan chocolates, nutritional yeast and plant-based milks. There are vegan cafs and restaurants such as About Vegan (Jaipur), Bodhi Greens (Dharamsala), Carrots (Bengaluru), Earthlings (Mumbai) and Elysian Delights (Gurugram), vegan cooking classes, vegan tours, vegan conferences and vegan e-tailers such as vegandukan.com and veganmall.in. "Plant-based milks such as soy milk, almond milk and oat milk have made promising inroads with Indian consumers. "Estimated at $21 million vs the animal-derived dairy industry at $140 billion, plant-based dairy in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of 20.7 per cent to reach $63.9 million by 2024," write Dhruvi Narsaria and Rajyalakshmi in their 2020 report, "Insights on plant-based milk category in India", published by the Good Food Institute India and Ipsos India.
India's reproduction value, which reflects how rapidly the coronavirus pandemic is spreading, has remained below 1 since September, suggesting that the infection rate is declining, according to a study.
Anti-inflammatory or immunomodulatory therapy, such as steroids, can have the risk of secondary infection like invasive mucormycosis, when used too early, at higher dose or for longer than required, they highlighted.
'We need to prove to the world that quality vaccines and R&D are possible in India.'
An increase in government spending on the healthcare sector - from the current 1 per cent to 2.5-3 per cent of GDP - as envisaged in the National Health Policy 2017 could reduce out-of-pocket expenditures, as per the Economic Survey 2020-21. The rise in public spending can lead to a reduction in expenditures from 65 per cent to 30 per cent of overall healthcare spend, it noted. The Economic Survey said that for the country to effectively respond to future pandemics, the country's health infrastructure needs to be agile. Given its potential to provide healthcare access in remote areas, telemedicine needs to be harnessed to the fullest by especially investing in internet connectivity and health infrastructure, it added.
Legendary Indian sprinter Milkha Singh is 'better and more stable' as he battles COVID-19 in the ICU of the PGIMER hospital in Chandigarh and also received a phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi enquiring about his health on Friday.
'Time is of the essence in a quarantine situation, perhaps the best way in the present unprecedented situation to balance conflicting interests between individual's rights and public health is to allow for immediate quarantine for preventing spread of contagious and infectious COVID-19'
"The intelligence community and the rest of the government are still looking at this. There's not been a definitive conclusion, so it's difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here," National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters at a daily White House news conference.
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