Heena Sharma Blog

  India could resume deliveries of COVID-19 shots to global vaccine-sharing platform COVAX in a few weeks for the first time since April, two health industry sources said, ending a suspension of supplies that has hurt 8 poor countries. The World Health Organization (WHO), which co-leads COVAX, has been urging India to restart supplies for the programme, especially after it sent about 4 million doses to its neighbours and partners in October. Based on an informal approval from India, COVAX officials have started planning allocations of the Covishield shot for various countries, said one of the sources, both of whom declining to be identified pending a final agreement. Covishield is a licensed version of the AstraZeneca shot made by the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker. SII has nearly quadrupled its output of Covishield to up to 240 million doses a month since April, when India stopped all exports in order to inoculate its own people during ...

  Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and State COVID task force head Dr CN Ashwathnarayan on Thursday said that Mucormycosis or black fungus has been declared as a notifiable disease and none of the hospitals should give treatment for this disease without bringing to the notice of the concerned government authorities. Speaking to reporters during his visit to the Suttur Mutt, he said, "Government is providing treatment for black fungus in all the six division centres of the state and Mysuru Medical College will be providing the treatment in this region. Apart from this, the treatment is available in private hospitals also." He also said that the drug required for the treatment of black fungus is at present is being imported and now a few companies have come forward to manufacture here itself. Once the manufacture begins here, it would resolve the issue of shortage of the drug. Read More

  Amid the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Modi will interact with the district magistrates (DMs) and field officials of 10 States today. "PM Modi will interact with the DMs and field officials of 10 States-Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh today", informed an official statement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held a meeting with field officials from states and districts about their experience in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa also attended the virtual meeting where Union Home Minister Amit Shah was present. Also, on May 16, PM Modi discussed the COVID-19 situation with the Chief Ministers of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry over a phone call. Read More

  The overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 159.3 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.31 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 159,305,473 and 3,312,199 respectively. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 32,773,387 and 582,791, respectively, according to the CSSE. In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 22,992,517 cases. The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (15,282,705), France (5,861,384), Turkey (5,059,433), Russia (4,840,948), the UK (4,455,440), Italy (4,123,230), Spain (3,586,333), Germany (3,547,901), Argentina (3,191,097) and Colombia (3,031,726), the CSSE figures showed. Read More

  The good news is that the vaccines work against a new virus strain circulating in India that’s spread to several other countries. The bad news is it won’t be only the new version of the pathogen to emerge from an outbreak of this scale, underscoring the urgency of mapping other possible variants that may be currently racing through India’s tightly-packed population of 1.4 billion people. As infections surge by more than 300,000 cases for 14 straight days, pushing India’s tally past 20 million, the country’s limited ability to track new mutations emerging from its outbreak is a growing concern for scientists. Second- or even third-generation versions of the variant known as B.1.617 could already be circulating in India and some may be more dangerous, said William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor who now chairs think tank Access Health International. Read More

A day after the city government of Wuhan locked down all of its public transportation to keep the coronavirus outbreak that began in the city from spreading further, three nurses found themselves stranded outside Hankou train station. They had returned early from the Lunar New Year holiday to go back to work at Tongji hospital, just five kilometres away, but laden with luggage and food from concerned relatives, they had no way to reach there. Seeing their request for help online, 53-year-old Wuhan resident Chen Hui donned a face mask and went to pick them up at the station, which is just down the street from the seafood market believed to be where the coronavirus emerged. Wuhan, where 11 million people live, has been paralyzed by containment efforts by health authorities. With public transit shut down and taxis and ride-hailing operations also suspended, ordinary citizens are risking their health to ferry medical staff to and from work and getting key supplies such as food ...