Heena Sharma Blog

  The prevalence of the highly-transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 among specimens sequenced over the past four weeks exceeded 75 per cent in many countries worldwide, including India, China, Russia, Israel and the UK, the WHO has said. In the COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update published July 20, the World Health Organization said that despite efforts to extend vaccination coverage, many countries across all six WHO regions continue to experience surges in coronavirus cases. Over the past week, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from Indonesia (350,273 new cases; a 44 per cent increase), the UK (296,447 new cases; 41 per cent increase), Brazil (287,610 new cases; 14 per cent decrease), India (268,843 new cases; 8 per cent decrease) and the US (216,433 new cases; 68 per cent increase). The update noted that as of July 20, a total of over 2.4 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences have been submitted to GISAID, the global science initiative and primary source that p...

  The World Health Organisation , which is currently reviewing Bharat Biotech's application for an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of its COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin , has said it is assessing the data of the jab. In an update on its website, the WHO, which began rolling data on July 6, said the date for a decision on the jab is yet "to be confirmed". Rolling data allows the WHO to start its review right away, as information continues to come in, to accelerate the overall review process. Suchitra Ella, joint managing director of Bharat Biotech, had recently said the EUL process is a step closer to the final decision on Covaxin's 'global acceptance' as the rolling data was slated to begin in July. She also, in a tweet, said the company was working closely with the WHO for inclusion of Covaxin in its EUL and approval is not expected to be a long drawn process as cell line and majority of Bharat Biotech's facilities have already been audited and approved by...

  The overall number of global Covid-19 cases has surpassed 124 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.73 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Wednesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 124,124,997 and 2,733,380, respectively. The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 29,920,561 and 543,793, respectively, according to the CSSE. Brazil follows in the second place with 12,130,019 cases and 298,676 fatalities. The other countries with more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases are India (11,686,796), Russia (4,424,595), France (4,373,607), the UK (4,321,006), Italy (3,419,616), Spain (3,234,319), Turkey (3,061,520), Germany (2,689,205), Colombia (2,347,224), Argentina (2,261,577), Mexico (2,203,041) and Poland (2,089,869), the CSSE figures showed. Read More

  The World Health Organisation has granted an emergency authorization to AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine , a move that should allow the UN agency's partners to ship millions of doses to countries as part of a UN-backed programme to tame the pandemic. In a statement Monday, the WHO said it was clearing the AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea's AstraZeneca-SKBio. The WHO's green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine is only the second one the U. N. health agency has issued after authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December. Monday's announcement should trigger the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up for the UN-backed COVAX effort, which aims to deliver vaccines to the world's most vulnerable people. Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk, said Dr. Mariangela Simao, the WHO's Assi...

  Even as several countries were planning to roll out coronavirus vaccines as early as in December or January, doses of these vaccine were unlikely to available before early- or mid-2021, World Health Organization (WHO) Southeast Asia Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh told Business Standard. “It is hoped that if a successful vaccine is found within the next few months, enough doses will be available for countries by the end of 2021 so that those in priority populations who choose to be vaccinated have access to them,” Singh said. Even the front-runners among vaccine companies would take at least a few months to complete Phase-III trials and evaluate the efficacy and safety of individual vaccines, she said. Add to this the time taken for licensure, authorisation for use and mass production after the trials have been completed. Read More

  The World Health Organization 's Europe director said Thursday that the 54-country region has again reached a new weekly record for confirmed cases, with more than 1.5 confirmed last week and more than 10 million since the start of the pandemic. During a meeting with European health ministers, WHO European regional director Dr. Hans Kluge said, hospitalisations have risen to levels unseen since the spring and that deaths have risen by more than 30% in the last week. Europe is at the epicenter of this pandemic once again, Kluge said. At the risk of sounding alarmist, I must express our very real concern. Testing systems have been unable to keep up with widespread levels of transmission, and test positivity levels have reached new highs, with most European countries exceeding 5 per cent and many cases spreading unchecked, he said. Read More

A top World Health Organization expert has tried to clear up "misunderstandings" about comments she made that were widely understood to suggest that people without COVID-19 symptoms rarely transmit the coronnoavirus. Maria Van Kerkhove, the U.N. health agency's technical lead on the virus pandemic, insisted Tuesday that she was referring only to a few studies, not a complete picture, in the comments she made Monday. Van Kerkhove's remarks on Monday raised confusion and questions among outside experts and health officials who have recommended and in some places required that people wear masks to try to prevent the virus from spreading. Read More

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has fast-tracked the roll out of the global 'Solidarity' trial launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help in finding an effective treatment for Covid-19 . 'Solidarity' is an international clinical trial to compare four treatment options against the standard of care to assess their relative effectiveness against Covid-19. By enrolling patients in multiple countries, the trial aims to rapidly discover whether any of the drugs slow disease progression or improve survival. Importantly, the initiative provides for both speed and scale. Read More

Despite the severe strain on public health systems due to the Covid-19 pandemic , countries around the world must also focus on other health emergencies like malaria or polio, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday. "Public health systems are coming under severe strain as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Countries must also continue to focus on other health emergencies and make progress against diseases such as malaria or poliomyelitis (polio)," WHO said in its daily coronavirus situation report. The global number of those infected with coronavirus has increased by almost 85,000 in the past 24 hours, climbing to 2,804,796 Covid-19 cases. Read More

The Fitbit on your wrist not only counts your steps and minutes of sleep, it can also help tell if you’re coming down with the flu — and warn health authorities to get ready to help. A study in the United States has found that heart rate and sleep data from wearable fitness tracker watches can predict and alert public health officials to real-time outbreaks of flu more accurately than current surveillance methods. The study used data from more than 47,000 Fitbit users in five US states. The results, published in The Lancet Digital Health journal, showed that by using Fitbit data, state-wide predictions of flu outbreaks were improved and accelerated. The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 6,50,000 people worldwide die of respiratory diseases linked to seasonal flu each year. Traditional surveillance reporting takes up to three weeks, meaning response measures — such as deploying vaccines or anti-virals and advising patients to stay at home — can often lag....

Young children should not spend more than an hour a day watching television and videos or playing computer games and infants less than one year old should not be exposed to electronic screens at all, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Limiting, and in some cases eliminating, screen time for children under the age of 5 will result in healthier adults, said WHO, adding that quality sedentary time spent in interactive non-screen-based activities with a caregiver, such as reading, storytelling, singing and puzzles, is very important for child development. Taking away iPads and other electronic devices is only part of the solution. Children under 5 should also get more exercise and sleep in order to develop better habits, said WHO. Failure to meet current physical activity recommendations is responsible for more than 5 million deaths globally each year across all age groups. The United Nations agency, issuing its first such guidelines, said under-fives should...