India's cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar on Saturday came in support of people affected by the devastating flood in Jammu and Kashmir by donating truckloads of relief which consists of five tons of eatables and 1000 blankets apart from other important stuff.
Over 21 per cent of the population, aged 10 years and above, showed evidence of past exposure to COVID-19 in the Indian Council of Medical Research's latest national serosurvey, the government said on Thursday, noting that a large proportion of people are still vulnerable to the infection.
The results are based on epidemiological data collected up to third week in June 2020 and the researchers say a comprehensive evaluation will need to follow after the pandemic has subsided.
It will be the first time that Israel will launch a satellite aboard an Indian rocket.
A PTI tally of figures announced by states and UTs, as of 9.30 pm, showed the total number of confirmed cases having risen to close to 2.1 lakh and the death toll to approximately 6,000, showing an increase of nearly 9,000 cases since Tuesday evening and at least 273 more fatalities in this time period.
IMD has said the temperature in April-June across most parts in India is expected to be 0.5-1 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. However, doctors and scientists say they haven't found any direct correlation between the speed of COVID-19 spread and warm weather.
Dr Tedros said the team has concluded that leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as alleged by former US president Donald Trump is the "least likely hypothesis" but it requires further probe.
According to the research, published in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics, gastrointestinal symptoms first suffered by some children hints at potential infection with SARS-CoV-2 through the digestive tract.
China's National Health Commission in its daily report on Monday said that 2,829 new cases of coronavirus were reported nationwide on February 2, taking the total number of infection to 17,205.
The agencies said that both pets had mild respiratory illness and are expected to make a full recovery. COVID19 infections have been reported in very few animals worldwide and mostly in those that had close contact with a person with COVID-19.
The expose, which was in Chinese, said that the Chinese Communist Party was covering up the COVID-19 crisis and there was a human-to-human transmission of the virus.
'When you are on these drugs, there is a possibility that you come to the hospital late, just by virtue of the fact that you believe that things are going to turn around, because you are on all these medicines.'
The visit will take place more than six months after the WHO's country office in China picked up a statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on cases of 'viral pneumonia'.
The government said the use of such masks will help in protecting the community at large
India's first mRNA platform-based vaccine will remain stable at 2-8 degrees Celsius while Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine needs minus 70 degrees Celsius and Moderna vaccine can remain stable for six months at minus 20 degrees Celsius, reports Sohini Das.
India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.
'This year, we know the virus. Last year we didn't know anything about it.' 'The best part is that for the Indian population there has been some amount of cross protection.'
'You can still acquire the COVID-19 virus even if you are vaccinated.' 'But if you develop the disease, (after being vaccinated) the likelihood is that it will be mild.' 'It just makes sense to continue to take precautions, because you may be around a lot of unvaccinated people.'
The researchers said the growth rate of COVID-19 is weakly linked to the outdoor weather, adding that the chances of the survival of the virus "increases roughly by five times under a humid condition as compared to a dry condition."
Prior to the beginning of the nationwide vaccination drive against Covid-19 in India on January 16, the Pune-based Serum Institute of India has issued a factsheet to answer frequently asked questions that vaccine beneficiaries might have.
The approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) was given on the basis of recommendations submitted by a COVID-19 subject expert committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo became the first player to score at four European Championship tournaments with a brilliant back-heel flick against Hungary at Euro 2016 on Wednesday after setting a finals appearance record.
'The world is finally recognising that China is pushing a form of government that many only now are beginning to recognise as problematic'
'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.'
Ashish Kurme, an MBBS student studying at a university near Wuhan, tells the grim story of ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
'In spite of all the sermonising from the political class, when they come in public, the ministers don't follow their own rules.' 'They don't mask.' 'If you look at the West Bengal election campaigning, if you look at the Assam election campaigning or if you look at Kerala election campaigning, they are not setting an example.'
'Even after vaccines are given, precautions like using a mask and maintaining social distancing have to be taken.'
While the US-Iran conflict leading to a spike in global oil prices and trade war between the US and the EU topped the chart with 25 per cent, other major risks to the global economy include coronavirus, debt burdens causing a recess across emerging markets and Hong Kong protests causing an exodus from Asia's biggest financial centre.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
The researchers found that after being exposed to high levels of the novel coronavirus, none of the six monkeys that were given the vaccine developed viral pneumonia. Also, there was no sign that the vaccine had made the animals more vulnerable.
Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh said the remaining 77 per cent are still vulnerable to the viral disease and containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.
Ahead of his India visit on February 24-25, Trump said that India has not treated his country 'very well' on the trade front and indicated that a 'very big' bilateral deal with New Delhi may not be signed before the American presidential election in November.
Medical experts have warned that the volume of vaccine available to fight the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 in coming years is expected to fall far short of global demand, despite an unprecedented effort to manufacture billions of doses.
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.
'The question is really can we prevent half a million deaths.' 'We are fast approaching that number.'
World's most friendly, helpful and efficient airline crews belong to Asian airlines.
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.
The apex health research body on Tuesday validated the 1,000th testing laboratory, ramping up the capacity for detection of COVID-19 in the country. Currently, three lakh samples can be tested per day, an official said.
FabiFlu is the first oral favipiravir-approved medication in India for the treatment of COVID-19. Favipiravir can be used for coronavirus patients with co-morbid conditions such as diabetes and heart disease with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms.