A number of Indian medical experts on Monday supported calls from an eminent British Indian cardiologist for a full safety review into the use of Oxford/AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, administered in India as Covishield, over feared serious side effects such as heart attack and stroke.
Being driven to abandon Indian middle-class values, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
The vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, showed a "strong immune response" in animal studies, and the antibodies produced were able to completely neutralise the wild type virus, Zydus said. The 12 institutes have been asked by the ICMR to fast track clinical trials of the vaccine as it is being considered as one of the top priority projects which are being monitored at the topmost level of the government.
New strains of coronavirus found in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil have not been detected in Amravati, Yavatmal and Satara districts of Maharashtra where cases have spiked recently, the state government said on Friday.
The Drugs Control General of India has permitted emergency use of Covid vaccine Sputnik V with certain conditions, clearing the way for a third vaccine in addition to Covishield and Covaxin. Besides, the government on Tuesday also fast-tracked emergency approval for other jabs. Here is what the vaccines are all about:
'India is a country where many of the problems need local solutions and some be solved using basic science.'
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.
The Supreme Court has held 4 doctors including three senior doctors and the Advanced Medical Research Institute in Kolkata guilty for causing death of US-based psychologist, Anuradha Saha. The case has now been sent to the National Consumers Forum for calculating the quantum of compensation.The compensation sought is Rs 77.7 crore.
'FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed that the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China,' tweeted the FBI.
Karnataka health minister Dr K Sudhakar on Monday said his statement on modern women unwilling to marry and bear children at an event in NIMHANS was taken out of context and that he had no intention of singling out women and it was based on a survey, which cited statistics on what the younger generation felt about it.
Modi said Ayurveda is India's heritage whose expansion entails the welfare of humanity and all Indians will be happy to see that the country's traditional knowledge is making other countries prosperous.
He also said that infrastructure development in the country in the last eight years has been done with a human touch.
The research, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine on Tuesday, describes how different sized respiratory droplets emitted while speaking have a range of sizes, and can carry different amounts of virus.
US-based global tech giants, including IBM, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, have partnered with the White House to "unleash the power of American supercomputing resources" for combating the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said. From volunteering to manufacturing masks and ventilators to ramping up production of essential medical supplies and general items, the country's private sector have joined America's war against coronavirus in a big way, Trump said on Sunday, while launching a new public-private consortium organised by the White House, the department of energy and tech company IBM.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted three weeks interim bail to former police officer Pradeep Sharma, who was arrested in connection with the Antilia bomb scare case and the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran.
The interim findings of the trial in which the four drugs were tested in 405 hospitals across 30 countries, covering 11,266 adults, were released on 'medRxiv', a preprint server, on Thursday. The findings are under review for publication in a medical journal.
'Everybody says 5G and communication is important.' 'Everybody says automation, robotics, human computing interfaces -- people and machines working together -- is the future.' 'Everybody agrees that cybersecurity is something that is here to stay.' 'Everybody agrees that synthetic biology is important.' 'Instead of outlining thinking about industries for tomorrow and the future, let the evolutionary pathway be built in a way that it promotes robust, creative, thinking.'
The company claimed that the AYUSH ministry has "categorically agreed" that Patanjali had "appropriately worked on COVID-19 management".
Last year Dr Fauci had largely dismissed the theory that the deadly COVID-19 virus, due to which over 165 million people have been infected worldwide and over 3.5 million peope died so far, was genetically engineered and had leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
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.
Officials said several witnesses were heard on the impact of the pandemic. They added that this was the longest meeting of the panel without a break so far.
'There is no emergency of a third wave that we are rushing for booster doses.'
'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.'
The Congress leader from Gujarat said the Dalit community has given a call for a nationwide candle march on February 19 in support of Solanki, who was a first-year student of B.Tech (chemical) course.
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.
Subra Suresh is one of the only 16 living Americans to be elected to all three national academies, the IOM, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
'The NEET-UG 2021, will be held on 12th September across the country following COVID-19 protocols. The application process will begin from 5 pm tomorrow through the NTA website,' Pradhan said in a series of tweets.
'Antibodies remain in the blood for at least seven to nine months.'
Four others MD of Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurved Acharya Balkrishna; Director of National Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (NIMS), Jaipur, B S Tomar; his son Anurag Tomar; and senior scientist Anurag Varshney have also been named in the FIR, he said.
Codeine-based formulations are under the scanner for misuse as a narcotic product.
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.
"It is unrealistic to expect that COVID-19 pandemic can be eliminated at this stage given that community transmission is already well-established across large sections or sub-populations in the country," the report said.
'Even if Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech were successful in ramping up production overnight, what happens to the capacity after the demand from India is met?' asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
Those infected with the virus may have mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain or headache.
September witnessed 24,33,319 people recuperating from coronavirus infection contributing to around 46.15 per cent of the total 52,73,201 recoveries registered so far in the country.
'I feel she has some mental disorder. Or, it was an act of pure revenge.'
'There is no data to show this virus is more deadlier.'
Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E are among the domestic pharma firms working on the coronavirus vaccines in India.
Experts say herd immunity is said to have been developed in a population segment if at least 50-60 per cent of those are found to have the presence of antibodies in a sero-prevalence survey.
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).