India is soon likely to participate in the WHO's multi-country "solidarity trial" for developing potential treatments for COVID-19, Union Health Ministry officials said on Friday. The priority of the Indian Council of Medical Research in developing drugs is more towards re-purposing&nbsp;molecules instead of creating new ones. The&nbsp;Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR said that the Department of Biotechnology has been looking into the vaccine development programme. About 30 scientific groups are working on creating a vaccine worldwide, and at least five have started animal trials. India is&nbsp;willing to go for vaccine trials if they pass out on animal study for our population, said experts.&nbsp;

India is soon likely to participate in the WHO's multi-country "solidarity trial" for developing potential treatments for COVID-19, Union Health Ministry officials said on Friday. The priority of the Indian Council of Medical Research in developing drugs is more towards re-purposing molecules instead of creating new ones. The Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR said that the Department of Biotechnology has been looking into the vaccine development programme. About 30 scientific groups are working on creating a vaccine worldwide, and at least five have started animal trials. India is willing to go for vaccine trials if they pass out on animal study for our population, said experts.

The World Health Organization is resuming its trial of&nbsp;hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug backed by President&nbsp;Donald Trump&nbsp;to combat the deadly coronavirus. The resumption of trials comes after the UN health body temporarily halted the research over safety concerns.&nbsp;WHO Director-General&nbsp;Tedros&nbsp;Ghebreyesus said during a press conference that the&nbsp;Data Safety Monitoring Board decided there was no reason to discontinue the international trial after reviewing available data on the&nbsp;drug.&nbsp;On May 25, WHO announced it had&nbsp;temporarily suspended&nbsp;its trial after a&nbsp;study published&nbsp;in medical journal The Lancet&nbsp;found&nbsp;that hospitalized Covid-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine had a higher risk of death than those who didn&rsquo;t take it.&nbsp;The study is being reexamined.&nbsp;

The ayurvedic department in Rajasthan has undertaken a unique initiative to boost immunity to fight the&nbsp;Covid-19 crisis. The programme called 'Har Ghar Giloy', promoted in&nbsp;Jodhpur,&nbsp;suggests that any household interested in planting giloy, an ayurvedic herb known for its immunity-boosting properties, can contact the authorities and the municipal corporation will provide them with the plant. District Collector Prakash Purohit&nbsp;stated that the aim is to make the medicinal properties of giloy&nbsp;universally available.

As many as 84 per cent of coronavirus&nbsp;samples have low infectiousness, that is they will transmit to only 0.8 persons on average,&nbsp;suggest findings by ICMR&rsquo;s National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), Ahmedabad. The team, which studied 1000 samples,&nbsp;recommends&nbsp;that Covid-19 tests should also check for viral load, which refers to the quantity of a virus in an organism, as cases bearing a 'high viral load' can infect almost eight times more persons than ones classified with 'low viral load.'
Scientists believe that isolating and treating high to medium viral load cases or 'super spreaders' as they are more colloquially called could reduce&nbsp;the infection rate.&nbsp;

A new study partly commissioned by the World Health Organisation and published in The Lancet journal has found that reducing physical distancing from 2 metres to 1 metre could double the risk of coronavirus infection. This comes to light as governments all over the world try to plan to how to reopen public space and offices and what guidelines to impose to minimise virus spread. Researchers found that&nbsp;a distance of more than 1 metre from other people reduced the risk of infection to 3 per cent while less than a metre of distance shot up the risk of infection to 13 per cent. India currently recommends a distance of at least 1 metre in its social distancing guidelines.&nbsp;

A Yoga Camp was organized for the policemen and their families in Moradabad, UP. The aim of the initiative is boost their immunity and relieve them of the stress they are going through while working on the frontlines&nbsp;to combat Covid-19.&nbsp;
On Tuesday morning, policemen and their family members were seen doing yoga asanas at this yoga camp.
So far, 8,361 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus&nbsp;have been reported from Uttar&nbsp;Pradesh.

A massive review of&nbsp;172 studies in 16 countries by Canadian researchers has found that&nbsp;frequent handwashing and good hygiene are also critical to the prevention of virus spread along with other measures like wearing face masks and social distancing of one metre.&nbsp;
Published in the Lancet journal, researchers found that while all these measures together are helpful, they cannot provide full protection. It was also found that current research is limited as most of our findings are based on evidence for SARS&nbsp;and MERS viruses.
One of the authors cautioned that 'wearing a mask is not an alternative to physical distancing, eye protection or basic measures such as hand hygiene'&nbsp;

Children are more likely to experience anxiety and depression once the Covid-19&nbsp;lockdown&nbsp;is lifted,&nbsp;says a new study by the University of Bath. Scientists added that the impact of this loneliness and mental health could last for as long as nine years! Over 60 existing, peer-reviewed studies on topics like isolation and loneliness for people between 4 and 21 years were observed.The review concluded that young people who have experienced loneliness throughout the lockdown might be as much as three times more likely to develop depression in the future.

The University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company&nbsp;AstraZeneca plan&nbsp;to start testing&nbsp;their Covid-19 jab in 5 to 12-year-olds as schools and nurseries reopen in the U.K, says a&nbsp;Bloomberg report.&nbsp;Children appear to be less affected by Covid-19, however, their role in the transmission of the virus remains unclear.&nbsp;A vaccine will protect them and ensure they don&rsquo;t infect others who are more at risk, say experts. The experimental jab was tried on adults first, showing transient side effects such as a temperature and a sore arm. When it moves into the more advanced stages of research in June, it will be administered to over 10,000 people, and some of them will be children. The team will start recruiting patients in the coming weeks, the report said.

In his new book titled&nbsp;How To Survive A Pandemic, American nutritionist Dr. Michael Greger&nbsp;has claimed that chicken farming could lead to a health crisis '100 times' greater than Covid-19, causing quite a stir. The vegan physician says that&nbsp;half the world&rsquo;s population could be wiped out by a disease from poultry farming if global farming practices continue as they are today.&nbsp;The Mirror reports,&nbsp;Greger&nbsp;believes current poultry production is the 'perfect breeding ground for diseases like the bird flu.' He pushed for smaller flocks with improved hygiene to try and slow the spread of viruses.&nbsp;

Researchers from Beijing say that wearing face coverings at home is 79 per cent effective in preventing the spread of Covid-19 amongst members of the same household living together. Publishing their findings in the BMJ&nbsp;Global Health journal,&nbsp;researchers questioned 460 people from 124 Chinese families&nbsp;with at least one coronavirus positive member in each house. It was found that secondary transmission occurred in 41 of the families with adults catching it more (69.5 per cent) than children (36 per cent). Wearing a face mask before the infection was slightly more successful in avoiding infection than disinfection, suggesting that the universal use of face masks, not just outside but also at home is a key to curbing the health crisis.&nbsp;

South Korean bio-pharmaceutical&nbsp;company,&nbsp;Celltrion Inc aims to start human trials for its Covid-19 experimental drug in July. According to reports, the treatment showed&nbsp;100-fold reduction in viral load of Covid-19 in animal testing conducted on ferrets. It will be tested on hamsters, monkeys and mice before trials begin on humans. The company shared that they could be running trials in the country or abroad and have the capability to mass produce the treatment once it is ready.&nbsp;

A simple, non-invasive blood test may be able to tell how prostate cancer patients will respond to treatment, a new study by The Institute of Cancer Research in London suggests. The liquid biopsy, researchers believe, may also help pinpoint patients at a greater risk of a relapse and tailor treatment for those in more advanced stages of the illness. For the study, the team of researchers from ICR and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation analysed almost ,1000 blood samples from prostate cancer patients. The results concluded that the tests can detect 'traces of cancer in the bloodstream' and could help track the progression of the disease as well as response to treatment. Men who were found with a higher level of tumour DNA in the beginning of treatment had a worse outcome. Patients were monitored with repeated blood tests and those who responded to treatment saw a fall in the cancer DNA.

According to the World Health Organisation, since Covid-19&nbsp;primarily&nbsp;affects the lungs, smokers are at a higher risk of developing severe disease and death. Chewing tobacco, on the other hand, leads to increased production of saliva and thus the urge to spit.&nbsp;Spitting in public places could enhance the spread of the virus. Tobacco is also a major risk factor for heart disease, cancer and diabetes that put people with these conditions at higher risk for developing severe illness when affected by Covid-19.&nbsp;However, there are no peer-reviewed studies that evaluate the direct risk of Covid-19 with tobacco use. The WHO cautions that&nbsp;the act of smoking involves contact of fingers with the lips, which increases the possibility of transmission of viruses from hand to mouth.&nbsp;Smoking waterpipes&nbsp;or e-cigarettes&nbsp;often involve the sharing of devices, mouth pieces and hoses, which could also facilitate the transmission. WHO recommends&nbsp;that if you smoke, now is a good time to quit completely.&nbsp;Within 2 to 12 weeks of quitting, circulation will improve and the lung function increases, says the&nbsp;health body.&nbsp;&nbsp;

An experimental diagnostic test&nbsp;that can visually detect the presence of the novel coronavirus in 10 minutes has been developed by scientists from&nbsp;the University of Maryland School of Medicine. A study published in the journal&nbsp;ACS Nano&nbsp;states that the test uses a simple assay containing gold nanoparticles to detect a colour change in the presence of the Covid-19 virus. Indian-origin lead author of the study Dipanjan&nbsp;Pan told PTI&nbsp;that based on preliminary results, the new test that only needs a nasal swab or saliva sample may detect RNA material from the virus as early as the first day of infection. However, scientists added that more clinical studies are needed to ascertain the effectiveness of the test.&nbsp;

To mark this year's World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organisation wants the highlight the importance of protecting teenagers from falling prey to the addiction. According to WHO estimates, nearly 90 per cent of smokers start smoking before they even turn 18 and more than 40 million young people aged 13-15, have already started to use tobacco. In fact,&nbsp;smoking e-cigarettes and hookah pipes, which are often marketed as 'safer' alternatives to conventional cigarettes are harmful, addictive, and increases the risk of developing heart and lung disease, the health body pointed out. With more than 15,000 flavours like bubble gum and candy, youngsters chances of smoking are now doubled.&nbsp;

May 31 marks World No Tobacco Day. In addition to raising awareness, the initiative&nbsp;recognizes the efforts of countries, individuals and organisations from around the world in tobacco control.&nbsp;Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has received this year's 'World No Tobacco Day Award' issued by the World Health Organization. In 2016, Finland updated its Tobacco Act&nbsp;with a new objective to end the use of tobacco and other nicotine products by 2030. To reduce the appeal of e-cigarettes, especially among young people, Finland strictly regulates them and has introduced a ban on the use of flavours in e-cigarettes &ndash; one of the few countries globally which has introduced such policy measures.

The issue of tobacco smoking and risk for acute respiratory infection has become a talking point amid the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a paper published in The Lancet journal, robust evidence suggests that several mechanisms may increase the risk of respiratory tract infections in smokers.&nbsp;Smoking impairs the immune system and the ability to contain infection. The risk of contracting pneumonia&nbsp;is about 3&ndash;5 times higher in smokers and they&nbsp;are also 5-times more likely to contract&nbsp;influenza, states the paper. There's not enough evidence to support that tobacco smoking increases the risk of being infected by Covid-19. However, available studies indicate that&nbsp;current smokers have increased gene expression of ACE2 - the main receptor used by the Covid-19 virus to gain entry to host cells and cause active infection.&nbsp;The challenge for Covid-19 studies is to have large enough sample sizes with all variables that might be associated with tobacco smoking and health.&nbsp;

The Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee will be conducting research on identifying antivirals&nbsp;to treat the Covid-19 virus.&nbsp;The study is funded under the intensification of Research in High&nbsp;Priority areas under the Department of Science and Technology.&nbsp;Researchers will work on identifying small molecule inhibitors to target key enzymes that replicate the virus in the body.&nbsp;This will help expedite the process of identification of drugs that can be used to treat Covid-19.&nbsp;An IIT Roorkee professor Dr.&nbsp;Kamal Jain also&nbsp;recently created a new surveillance system for tracking suspected Covid-19 patients.&nbsp;
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Taking the fight against Covid-19 a step ahead, NHS&nbsp;England has rolled out a 'Trace and Test service' to move towards more localised and targeted efforts to tackle the virus. As part of the service, those who have contracted the infection in England and Scotland will be contacted by NHS&nbsp;teams and their interactions will be further traced. Those who are deemed to be at risk of infection, will be made to isolate for 14 days. Almost&nbsp;25,000 tracers are working for England's NHS Test and Trace team.&nbsp;

New York-based artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada is nearing the completion of a 20,000-foot portrait of Dr. Ydelfonzo Decoo, who lost his life while fighting on the frontlines&nbsp;to battle the&nbsp;Covid-19 pandemic. The huge portrait is located on the pavement of a parking lot in Queens.&nbsp;Jorge&nbsp;calls it a 'terrestrial portrait', large-enough to be seen by the satellites! His mural is a tribute to all the&nbsp;healthcare workers, doctors and first responders&nbsp;who have lost their lives while helping others get through the pandemic.&nbsp;
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India likely participate in WHO trial for developing Covid-19 drugs

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India likely participate in WHO trial for developing Covid-19 drugs

Mar 28, 2020 13:10 IST

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