India reports 50,848 new COVID19 cases, 68,817 discharges & 1,358 deaths in last 24 hours as per a report by the Union Health Ministry.
Total cases: 3,00,28,709
Total discharges: 2,89,94,855
Death toll: 3,90,660
Active cases: 6,43,194
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, doctors in Mumbai have reported a rise in reported cases of influenza H1N1 and H3N2 in the city.
Since swine flu and Covid-19 have a similar disease presentation, infectious disease experts have advised doctors to think of H1N1 if a patient doesn’t respond to Covid-19 treatment.
Infectious disease expert Dr Vasant Nagvekar said he has seen three cases of swine flu and two cases of H3N2, also a subtype of influenza A this year.
Dr Nagvekar said recently a patient who recovered from Covid-19 tested positive for H1N1.
“I have recently treated two patients who presented with cold, fever and headache. One of the patients, in his 30s, had recently recovered from Covid-19. Since it is rare for a patient to get Covid-19 re-infection within 90 days, he was suggested to take a H1N1 test. The result of the test came positive.”
Both Covid and H1N1 are respiratory diseases, hence the right diagnosis is important, the doctor said.
Last year, Mumbai reported 44 cases, while the city saw 451 cases and five deaths due to H1N1 in 2019.
Dr Tanu Singhal, consultant in paediatrics and infectious disease said, “We are seeing other viral infections and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases. Doctors should keep this in mind, especially when a patient is not responding to Covid treatment.”
Amid more infectious Covid-19 variants reported across the globe, scientists are recommending a combination of vaccine which may offer longer immunity and protection against variants.
Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist says that combination of Covid-19 vaccines seems to be working well against variants. She said, “It seems to be working well, this concept of heterologous prime-boost. This opens up the opportunity for countries that have vaccinated people with one vaccine and now are waiting for the second dose they have run out of, to potentially be able to use a different platform vaccine.”
But, she said that early data from the UK, Spain and Germany suggest a “mix-and-match” regimen using two different types of vaccines generates more pain, fever and other minor side effects compared with two doses of the same inoculation, a report in Bloomberg said.
Swaminathan adds that the so-called heterologous prime-boost combinations appear to spur a more robust immune response, leading to higher levels of antibodies and the white blood cells that kill virus-infected cells.
Countries, meanwhile, have already started testing a combination of vaccines to speed up immunisation. Malaysia, for example is considering a combination of the AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer-BioNTech shots and the government is trying to speed up immunizations to achieve population-level immunity by year-end, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said.
“We do not have the information that’s necessary to make the recommendation on whether or not a booster will be needed,” Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, said in a Zoom interview Friday. The “science is still evolving.”
Such a call is “premature” while high-risk individuals in most of the world haven’t yet completed a first course of vaccination, Swaminathan said. Data from countries introducing precautionary extra inoculations later this year — particularly for vulnerable people whose immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may wane faster — will inform WHO’s guidance, she said.
Covid booster shots are likely to be rolled out in U.K. in the fall to avoid another winter surge. Seven different vaccines are being tested in volunteers in England in the world’s first booster study, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last month.
The U.K., which has inoculated a larger proportion of people than any other major economy, has been forced to delay a planned lifting of coronavirus restrictions amid a resurgence of cases driven by the delta variant. The strain, first reported in India, is the most infectious reported to date.
Amritsar: In protest against the 6th Pay Commission report, the doctors at Government Medical College and Government Dental College have announced to boycott all duties except for emergency and Covid care on Monday for three hours.
The services which would be affected would include the OPD, IPD, operation theatre and classes of medical students. Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers’ Association general secretary Dr DS Bhullar said the Cabinet decision on Pay Commission report would result in drastic cut in the salaries of medical and dental teachers instead of any financial benefits as the non-practice allowance (NPA) has been decreased from 25 to 20 per cent and delinked from the basic pay for the first time in the history of Punjab Pay Commissions.
“NPA is part of the basic pay and considered as pay for the calculation of other allowances, including dearness allowance and house rent. Even the Supreme Court of India has upheld the decision of the Tribunal and the High Court by holding that 25 per cent of the pay as NPA will mean 25 per cent of the basic pay inclusive of the benefits,” he said.
Dr Mridhu Gupta, working state president, said doctors working in government medical and dental colleges in Amritsar and Patiala have outrightly rejected the 6th Punjab Pay Commission report related to the medical and dental faculty passed by the state government, which has resulted in huge financial loss to them in the present form and doctors have categorically decided to oppose it tooth and nail.
She said in its emergency meeting, the association has decided to oppose any such financial loss to the faculty and has urged Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to personally intervene to undo injustice to the medical and dental teachers and fix the new pay of government doctors.
A new study conducted by a group of scientists has found that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine offers strong neutralising antibody responses to the virus in baby rhesus macaques without any adverse effects.
The strong strong immunity response elicited by the vaccines in 16 baby rhesus macaques persisted for 22 weeks, the results published in Science Immunology said, as per an Indian Express report.
To evaluate SARS-CoV-2 infant vaccination, the researchers immunised two groups of 8 infant rhesus macaques at 2.2 months of age and 4 weeks later.
Each animal received either a preclinical version of the Moderna mRNA vaccine or a protein-based vaccine developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), US, the report said.
“The level of potent antibodies we observed were comparable to what has been seen in adult macaques, even though the doses were 30 micrograms instead of the 100 microgram adult doses,” said one of the author Kristina De Paris, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina.
The researchers are conducting further challenge studies to better understand the potential long-lasting protection of the vaccines.
The authors said that vaccines for young children are likely important and safe tools to curtail the pandemic.
Moderna had last month said that its COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects kids as young as 12.
The company has also filed an application with US Food and Drug Administration, European and Canadian regulators for an emergency use authorization for its vaccine to be given to adolescents.
The company had earlier announced results from a trial of 3,700 12-to-17-year-olds that found the two-dose regimen was safe and highly effective.
Both Pfizer and Moderna have begun testing in even younger children, from age 11 down to 6-month-old babies.
India reported 53,256 new coronavirus infections, the lowest in 88 days, with 1,422 fresh fatalities, the lowest in 65 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.
Total active cases: 7,02,887
Death toll: 3,88,135
Total cases: 25,99,35,221
Total vaccination: 28,00,36,898
In last 20 days, at least 15 people died at the state’s biggest tertiary hospital Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) due to thrombosis (clotting of blood in circulatory system), officials said on Saturday.
According to hospital officials, these Covid-19 patients died not long after they were discharged. Besides, the state has so far reported 26 deaths due to Mucormycosis, as per the state health department’s bulletin. The second wave of Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on many patients who are still struggling with complications arising after infected, particularly in the form of Mucormycosis (black fungus) and thrombosis.
Doctors at RIMS reported that around 40-50 patients daily visit the post-Covid out patient department (OPD). It has been noticed that around 20% of these patients are in serious condition, they said, adding that private hospitals too refer some critical patients.
According to RIMS critical care head Dr Pradeep Bhattacharya, nearly 45-50 post-Covid-19 patients are currently admitted at the hospital, and majority of them are suffering from respiratory problems.
“In post-Covid, moderate to severe category patients are at greater risk of thrombosis because they need more oxygen. We noticed that some patients suffer from hypercoagulation triggered by coronavirus. It has been seen that some recovered patients are now returning with complaints of pain in chest, stomach and limbs, mainly due to blood clotting,” Dr Bhattacharya said.
The Union government said on Friday that studies among healthcare workers (HCWs) have shown that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), reduces the chances of hospitalisation by 75-80% even if one contracts Covid-19.
Addressing a press conference, Dr VK Paul, NITI Aayog member (health) said, “Vaccination saved lives of thousands of healthcare workers. Studies show that chances of hospitalisation reduce by 75-80% after vaccination if they contract Covid-19. The possibility of oxygen requirement is around 8%, while the risk of ICU admission is just 6%. The protection is 94%.”
These, Dr Paul said, are “reasonable” sample-sized studies, adding that these were conducted in age groups in which the risk of contracting Covid-19 is “maximum.” Giving an example, he said that one particular study found one death out of 7000 cases and even then, the death took place as the deceased had comorbidities.
“Similar studies in other countries have also shown the protection that the vaccines give. I urge people to please take the vaccine and not hesitate. They might get infected even after the vaccination but it will not turn severe, lives will not be lost and by vaccination thousands and thousands of lives can be saved,” Dr Paul said.
Healthcare workers and frontline workers were the first to receive Covid-19 vaccine shots as the nationwide vaccination drive against the viral disease commenced on January 16. A total of 268,960,399 vaccine doses have been administered across the country till now, including 3,259,003 in the last 24 hours, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) dashboard on Friday morning.
Corticosteroids, a class of drugs that lowers inflammation, may be an effective treatment for children who develop a rare but serious condition after COVID-19 infection, according to a study.
All the 614 children in the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, developed a serious disorder following COVID-19 infection.
The disorder, called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), is thought to affect one in 50,000 children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The illness generally occurs two to six weeks after the infection. It affects children of all ages but is more common in older children and teenagers.
The researchers from Imperial College London, UK, noted that the disorder is characterised by persistent high fever, often accompanied by abdominal pain, vomiting, red eyes and red rash.
According to the researchers, most global reports suggest a fatality of two to four per cent associated with the disorder.
However, an important concern has been that some affected children have developed inflammation of their arteries that supply the heart with blood, resulting in widening of these arteries, they said.
The study “suggests that steroids may be a cheaper and more available alternative to immunoglobulin,” said Elizabeth Whittaker, one of the authors of the study from Imperial College.
“Corticosteroids are cheap and available worldwide whereas immunoglobulin is expensive, and there is a worldwide shortage of it. This is a particular problem in many low and middle-income countries,” she added.
The researchers investigated two initial treatments for this condition: a type of steroid called corticosteroids, such as methylprednisolone, and antibody treatment called immunoglobulin.
The antibodies come from human blood and have been shown to reduce inflammation in the body.
The study also compared initial treatment with steroids together with immunoglobulin.
The research involved hundreds of doctors worldwide uploading information about patient outcomes onto an online database.
All three treatments — immunoglobulin, immunoglobulin combined with corticosteroids and corticosteroids alone — resulted in a more rapid decrease of inflammation.
There were no clear differences between the three treatments in rate of recovery from organ failure or progression to organ failure, the researchers noted.
They noted that the number of fatal cases (2 per cent) was too low to enable comparison between treatments, but death was included in a combined assessment with organ failure, which found no significant differences between the three treatments.
The analysis was then restricted to the 80 per cent of children who met the World Health Organization’s criteria for MIS-C.
There was evidence of a lower rate of organ failure or death at two days in those receiving steroids alone as initial treatment, compared to immunoglobulin alone.
However, the authors stress there is insufficient data to establish that all three treatments are equivalent in preventing coronary artery aneurysms.
Around six per cent of children in the study suffered a coronary artery aneurysm, they added.
“Our finding, that treatments with immunoglobulin, steroids or a combination of both agents all result in more rapid resolution of inflammation will be of great value to paediatricians worldwide in their treatment of children with this new disorder,” said Professor Michael Levin, from the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial, who led the study.
As immunoglobulin is unavailable or in short supply in many countries, and is expensive, the findings may provide some reassurance for those who only have access to corticosteroids,” Levin added.
Source: Express Pharma
India reports 62,480 new Covid cases along with 88,977 discharges and 1,587 deaths in last 24 hours, as per a report by the health ministry.
Total cases: 2,97,62,793
Total discharges: 2,85,80,647
Death toll: 3,83,490
Active cases: 7,98,656
Total Vaccination: 28,89,60,399