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.
According to the scientists, people infected with SARS-CoV-2 might be spreading the virus without recognizing, or prior to recognizing, symptoms.
Malaika dances down the ramp to her Dil Se.. song Chaiyya Chaiyya.
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
Findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research's fourth national Covid sero survey show there is a ray of hope, but there is no room for complacency and Covid-appropriate behaviour has to be followed, the government said.
The WHO has countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database.
A nine-year-old lioness Neela and a male lion named Pathbanathan, aged 12 years, succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this month.
The minister will review the COVID-19 situation at 11:30 am on Wednesday 'considering the international scenario', they said.
"Usually viruses that jump to a new host species take some time to acquire adaptations to be as capable as SARS-CoV-2 at spreading, and most never make it past that stage, resulting in dead-end spillovers or localised outbreaks," said Sergei Pond, another co-author of the study from Temple University in the US.
The study also noted that the booster dosage of the company's COVID-19 vaccine Vaxzevria also increased the immune response to Beta, Delta, Alpha and Gamma SARS-CoV-2 variants.
He urged people not to panic and clarified that there was no change in the guidelines for international air travel so far.
'If SARS-CoV-2 is anything like the first one, we expect antibodies to last at least two years, and it would be unlikely for anything much shorter'
He also said that it was wrong to suggest that India stopped foreign made vaccines like that made by Moderna and Pfizer from coming to India.
Dominic Xavier's take on the ongoing global debate about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said future decisions on COVID-19 SOPs will be taken in consultation with the Union Health Ministry and the state Task Force, amid a difference between the Centre and the state over guidelines for international travellers in the wake of the new variant of SARS-CoV2.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, also demonstrates that the immunity built up from previous non-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infections does not prevent individuals from getting COVID-19.
"Of the samples of seven animals (four tigers and three lions) from the Tamil Nadu zoo, one lioness tested positive for SARS CoV-2 and distemper virus, one lioness for SARS CoV-2, and one lion tested positive for distemper virus," IVRI Joint Director K P Singh said.
Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said a study has demonstrated that a booster dose of Covaxin has a neutralising effect on the Omicron and Delta variants of COVID-19.
'SARS-CoV-2 is going to change to avoid/overcome any thing thrown at it.'
The Centre said that there is no reason to believe presently on the that they are responsible for the surge in cases in some districts in these two states.
During a virtual meeting with health ministers and senior officials of states in view of the recent surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the world, he said, "The Centre and states need to work in tandem and in a collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for Covid prevention and management."
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine provides less immunity against Omicron than from other coronavirus variants, according to a lab study that suggests a booster may still provide good protection.
The genomic consortium, citing global data, said there is now clear experimental and clinical data supporting very high immune escape potential of Omicron, which appears to be the major component of its growth advantage over Delta.
The researchers, including those from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) in the United States, developed two molecules that inhibit the molecular 'scissor' enzyme used by the coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2-PLpro.
The study, published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, noted that the 'nanobodies' can prevent infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 by blocking its interaction with the protein ACE2, which it uses as a gateway to enter and infect cells.
"The COVID-19 cases are rising, but hospitalization and deaths are still less," said sources.
Amid a gradual rise in daily Covid-19 cases, the Union health ministry said on Thursday that the XBB.1.16 subvariant of Omicron might be the dominant virus strain in the country but there has been no reported increase in the rate of hospitalisation or death so far.
The B.1.640.2 variant has been reported by researchers at institute IHU Mediterranee Infection in at least 12 cases, and has been linked to travel to African country Cameroon.
In its weekly bulletin of December 27, released on Monday, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said global outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 are increasingly shifting from Delta to Omicron.
'However, the importance of children in transmitting the virus remains uncertain,' the scientists cautioned in the study. 'Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause infection and disease in animals, capable of rapid mutation and recombination, leading to novel viruses that can spread from animals to humans,' they said.
Most Indians have acquired hybrid immunity which means immunity developed through vaccines and also natural infection protecting them from different COVID-19 variants.
While Lupin is working on a Remdesivir powder for inhalation, Glenmark has tied up with a Canadian Biotech firm for nitric oxide nasal spray that reduces Sars-CoV-2 viral load and thus transmission.
'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.
Omicron can evade the immune protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines and natural infection, according to a peer-reviewed study which also suggests that the new variant of coronavirus is completely resistant to antibody therapies in use today.
Using this sequence data, the researchers traced the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing on the tell-tale features of the virus.
COVID-19 may be a seasonal infection linked to low temperatures and humidity, much like seasonal influenza, according to new 'robust' evidence found by researchers.
The study describes a new blood test which pinpoints the immune system molecules called antibodies in infected individuals that specifically target a unique piece of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2's spike protein.
The committee acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic may be approaching an "inflexion point".
Senior virologist Shahid Jameel on Sunday resigned as the chairman of scientific advisory group of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, a forum set up by union government in December last year for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance of circulating strains of COVID-19 in India.
The states were requested to take a stock of hospital preparedness such as availability of drugs and medical oxygen, vaccination coverage against COVID-19 and influenza.
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