In India, the drug is not licensed for weight loss. but as anti-diabetic medication, warns Dr Chandrakant Lahariya.
rediffGURUS Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, Komal Jethmalani, Dr Karthiyayini Mahadevan and Pushpa R will answer your diabetes-related questions.
Covid is growing milder with time but an occasional surge in cases is expected because the virus that causes it is now endemic and constantly evolving, say scientists while assuring that there is no cause for concern.
rediffGURU Chandrakant Lahariya tells you how to lower your blood sugar levels and manage your diabetes.
'Since the Covid virus has a tendency to mutate, we can continue to expect new variants of the virus to emerge and keep circulating and recirculating in the communities.'
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.
'All actions for COVID-19 should be the same as for other routine health conditions.' 'There is no need to report the matter in the media all the time; not on front page please.'
'Chances of getting the disease are not reduced, either after one dose or both doses of the vaccine.' 'And the probability of getting the infection -- you need to differentiate infection from disease -- by getting vaccinated is almost unaltered, be it single dose or two doses.' 'But your chances of developing moderate to severe disease, after getting infected, gets reduced with every dose you receive.'
... 'Or any country which has reasonable vaccine coverage.' 'The emergence of Omicron clearly proves that if we allow a virus to circulate in an unvaccinated population, it would take a form which could be a Variant of Concern, or a new variant.'
Eminent epidemiologist Dr Chandrakant Lahariya said these fluctuations in the figures will continue for a fairly long time and it is difficult to predict till when it will continue.
The current Covid situation in India is under control and there are no reasons to panic, said Dr N K Arora, the chairperson of National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI).
'Kerala is on a par with global standards.'
Among states and union territories, the analysis by Lahariya showed that Uttar Pradesh missed the highest number of cases. With every case reported in that state, 98 cases were missed or remained undetected.
Kids mostly have mild illnesses and recover with just symptomatic treatment.
'The reality of this virus is that as long as it is circulating, it can mutate into new variants and by the time you realise that this is a new virus, which is more dangerous, and more transmissible, it is too late.'
Voluntary use of masks must be promoted in the country in view of Covid-19's new XE variant, healthcare experts said, calling it the single-most effective intervention against all variants of the coronavirus.
'Unless we see four weeks of low and stable numbers with only minor fluctuations, we cannot call the valley as endemic just as yet'
'If we vaccinate quickly, it could be pushed to January, February, and the longer it can be pushed, the smaller the wave is likely to be, because by that time vaccination will scale up.'
According to these experts, a monkeypox outbreak can effectively be tackled by strong surveillance.
'You have sufficient protection if you take the second dose of the Covishield vaccine at 12 weeks, because this vaccine works in a way where it provides protection in the first dose.'
The reason is that because of the hybrid immunity after three waves of natural infection and a large proportion of adults receiving both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the susceptible pool has come down drastically, Lahariya said.
'Better to prevent than to wait for evidence. Protection delayed can also mean protection denied'
Only half India's population has received the first shot of Covishield and Covaxin and the government's immediate task is to first vaccinate its adult population before placing its focus on children.
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