Patients suffering from terminal prostate cancer could get 'two more years of life' with a new experimental immunotherapy drug tested by researchers at&nbsp;&nbsp;The Institute of Cancer Research, London.&nbsp;&nbsp;258 patients who had exhausted all treatment options were studied and were administered the&nbsp;&nbsp;IV drug pembrolizumab. 20 patients saw their tumour disappear or shrink.&nbsp; Immunotherapy has worked for cancers such as&nbsp;melanomas.&nbsp;

Patients suffering from terminal prostate cancer could get 'two more years of life' with a new experimental immunotherapy drug tested by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London. 258 patients who had exhausted all treatment options were studied and were administered the IV drug pembrolizumab. 20 patients saw their tumour disappear or shrink. Immunotherapy has worked for cancers such as melanomas.

The World Health Organization says it is ending a trial into whether anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps patients hospitalised with Covid-19. WHO said it has &ldquo;accepted the recommendation&rdquo; from the committee overseeing the trial to discontinue testing of hydroxychloroquine and anti-HIV drugs, which were being used for standard care for hospitalized coronavirus patients. WHO says a review of the interim results showed hydroxychloroquine along with the anti-HIV drug cocktail 'produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalized Covid-19 patients'

Genome sequence data from almost 30 per cent of all Covid-19 samples&nbsp;collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) have shown signs of mutation, reports Reuters. However, the top health body said that there is no evidence of this mutation leading to severe disease. WHO has collected over 60,000 samples of the disease so far.&nbsp;
Scientists at Scripps Research have found that 65% of global cases by April were from the mutated virus. They found that the mutation, called&nbsp;D614G, increases Covid-19's ability to infect cells and may explain why outbreaks in northern Italy and New York were larger than the ones reported earlier in the pandemic.&nbsp;

Not just physical, the coronavirus&nbsp;pandemic and the stresses brought upon by it are having a massive impact on our mental health as well. A report by Lybrate, a health and wellness platform, has found that online consultations for mental health issues have increased by over 180 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels. The platform saw a 255 per cent surge in consultations from women and 150 per cent from men. The highest jump was witnessed in the city of Mumbai at 205 per cent, followed by Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, all falling&nbsp;in the 100 to 200 per cent increase range.&nbsp;

The Karnataka&nbsp;government has ordered all facilities treating Covid-19 patients to provide a nutritious diet to all infected persons. The new diet plan is issued in an effort to boost the immunity of virus patients under treatment. As per the diet, breakfast will be served at 7 am and can be dishes like rava&nbsp;idli, pongal, set dosa, or&nbsp;bisi&nbsp;beli bath. After breakfast, patients should get a serving of seasonal fresh fruit followed by lunch at 1 pm. The lunch menu will comprise of&nbsp;roti, chapati, palya, rice, dal, egg and curd. At 5 pm, patients will get&nbsp;one banana and three cookies, two protein cookies, two dates and a mango bar for vitamin C. The dinner, served at 7 pm is almost the same as lunch followed by a glass of flavoured milk at 9 pm.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;Indian Council of Medical Research has asked medical institutions involved in trials for India's first Covid-19 vaccine, to fast-track the clinical trial approvals. The hospitals involved have been ordered to begin subject enrolment no later than July 7. Developed by Bharat&nbsp;Biotech in partnership with ICMR and the National Institute of Virology, the DGCI&nbsp;recently approved human clinical trials for Covaxin. ICMR&nbsp;has set Aug 15 as the launch date for the vaccine's public health use but the&nbsp;final outcome will depend on the cooperation of all clinical trial sites involved in this project, the top health body said. Reports say ICMR's letter to Bharat Biotech also comes attached with a warning, deliver on time or face consequences.&nbsp;

Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan and HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal&nbsp;have launched a 'Drug Discovery Hackathon' project and invited students and researchers to participate in it with an aim to develop an anti-Covid-19&nbsp;drug. The initiative is being jointly carried out by the Ministry of Human Resources Development and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).&nbsp;The CSIR has been re-purposing drugs to help patients recover from the novel coronavirus.

According to researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, a blood&nbsp;test may be able to predict the severity of Covid-19 and which&nbsp;patients are likely to need&nbsp;a ventilator.&nbsp;The finding could lead to a scoring system that would flag at-risk patients for closer monitoring and personalized treatments. The study focused on 57 Covid-19 patients who needed a ventilator to&nbsp;breath. They found that blood levels of a certain cytokine&nbsp;can predict the course of Covid-19.&nbsp;Cytokines are proteins that are central to the&nbsp;immune system, and their overreaction&nbsp;is a sign of severe Covid-19.&nbsp;Researchers also found higher levels of two cytokines in patients with high&nbsp;blood sugar. They said this may explain why&nbsp;diabetes&nbsp;is linked with worse Covid-19 outcomes. However, the study has not been peer-reviewed and should be considered preliminary.

People testing negative for Covid-19 antibodies may still have some immunity, a new study has suggested.&nbsp;Researchers at the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden tested 200 people for both antibodies and T-cells.&nbsp;For every person testing positive for antibodies, two were found to have specific T-cells which identify and destroy infected cells. However, it is likely that some did mount an antibody response, because either it had faded or was not detectable by the current tests. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that "antibody testing alone underestimates immunity". It is also not yet clear whether these T-cells just protect that individual, or if they might also stop them from passing on the infection to others.

A global trial to test anti-malaria drugs&nbsp;hydroxychloroquine&nbsp;and chloroquine&nbsp;as a treatment for Covid-19&nbsp;is going to restart. The&nbsp;COPCOV trial&nbsp;had been paused amid concerns about the side-effects of the drug raised by research published in the medical journal The Lancet.&nbsp;UK regulators have now said that&nbsp;the drugs can be given to healthcare workers in a clinical study to test the theory. The two drugs or a placebo will be given to more than 40,000 healthcare workers from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to ascertain&nbsp;its effectiveness.&nbsp;The research is being led by the Oxford University&rsquo;s Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok.&nbsp;

India accounts for 45.8 million of the world's 142.6 million 'missing females' over the past 50 years, a report by the United Nations said on Tuesday. The State of World Population 2020 report released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said that the number of &ldquo;missing women&rdquo; has more than doubled over the past 50 years - from 61 million in 1970 to a cumulative 142.6 million in 2020. Of this global figure, India accounted for 45.8 million missing females as of 2020 and China accounted for 72.3 million. The report said, between 2013 and 2017, about 460,000 girls in India were &lsquo;missing' at birth each year.

New findings have ruled out any meaningful mortality benefit for Covid-19 patients of lopinavir-ritonavir, a combination of antiviral drugs used in HIV&nbsp;treatment.&nbsp;Scientists from the University of Oxford studied the potential of the drug combination for coronavirus in the large-scale ongoing RECOVERY trial, in which several drugs are being tested in a randomised manner.&nbsp;Over 11,800 patients have been enrolled&nbsp;in the UK for the trial. Of which,&nbsp;1,596 patients were randomised to lopinavir-ritonavir and compared with 3,376 patients randomised to usual care alone. No significant difference in mortality for lopinavir-ritonavir&nbsp;was observed in comparison to usual care.&nbsp;

The Covid-19&nbsp;Trauma Response Working Group, led by the University College London, has urged that all survivors must be screened for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to health&nbsp;experts, patients who were hospitalised and required intensive care to recover, could be specially at risk of developing mental health issues due to the trauma associated with battling the disease. The research group found that people who were seriously ill with Covid-19 felt panicky while going out alone,&nbsp;after being discharged from the hospital.&nbsp;

Six months after the Covid-19 pandemic began, the World Health Organisation has warned that the worst is yet to come.&nbsp;WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus&nbsp;told a virtual briefing on Monday that if governments fail to implement the right policies, many more people could be infected. He shared that while countries are making progress, the pandemic is actually speeding up. He urged governments and health authorities&nbsp;to stick to&nbsp;the 'Test, Trace, Isolate and Quarantine' plan.&nbsp;

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to put the country on a diet as part of a wider strategy to counter obesity, seen as a major risk factor in those impacted by coronavirus. 'The focus will be on getting the nation fitter because, as the coronavirus has shown, it will save lives,' a health department insider told The Sunday Times. The proposals include&nbsp;better access to programmes ranging from family exercise schemes and healthy eating to bariatric surgery, which includes the fitting of gastric bands.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the UK and US, more than 60 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, a UK doctor told PTI.&nbsp;

A&nbsp;Coimbatore-based robotics engineer,&nbsp; Karthi Velayutham&nbsp;has created a&nbsp;'Covid-19 Smart Swab Robot&rsquo; for sample collection. The robot uses an app connected to the smartphone&nbsp;to function. The robot helps avoid any human contact, and thus, eliminates therisk of transmission of the virus. It took Velayutham&nbsp;Rs 2,000 to make the robot, which collects the swab sample in just two&nbsp;minutes. He shared with news agency ANI&nbsp;that if approved by authorities, his robot could work well in private and public testing labs.&nbsp;

There has been an overall increase of 20 per cent in blood sugar levels in India, says a report by Beato, a digital ecosystem for diabetes care and management. Surveying over&nbsp;8,200 diabetes patients across India, the findings suggest that pandemic anxiety and lockdown-related stress, as well as lack of access to quick medical attention,&nbsp;is the reason behind this uptick.&nbsp;States that recorded the maximum spike are Daman and Diu&nbsp;at 49 per cent,&nbsp;Tripura at 38 per cent, followed by Nagaland, Manipur and Uttarakhand. The average pre-pandemic fasting sugar levels at the beginning of the year were recorded at&nbsp;138 mg/dl which reached 165 mg/dl&nbsp;till mid-April, according to Beato.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

The US&nbsp;Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has added three new symptoms of Covid-19 to its list.&nbsp;Congestion or runny nose, nausea, and diarrhea have now been added to the list which already includes fever, sore throat, chills, cough, loss of smell and shortness of breath. CDC&nbsp;has shared that the list does not include all possible symptoms and it will keep updating it as and when more research is done regarding Covid-19.&nbsp;

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that pregnant women are five times more likely to be hospitalised due to the new coronavirus. Looking at the findings, the CDC&nbsp;has updated its list of the most vulnerable risk groups to add expecting mothers and removed age alone as a factor. The top health agency also altered the list of underlying health conditions that may make someone&nbsp;more susceptible to suffering and death. Among the updates, the&nbsp;threshold for obesity concern was lowered from a BMI of 40 down to 30. CDC&nbsp;director&nbsp;recommended that people in the high-risk group should limit contact with others as much as possible and exercise heavy precautions.&nbsp;

Remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has shown positive results in the treatment of Covid-19 patients in studies, has become the first drug to get approval for coronavirus&nbsp;treatment from the European Medicines Agency.&nbsp;
The agency has granted conditional marketing authorization for remdesivir&nbsp;to treat&nbsp;adults and children older than 12 with pneumonia who need oxygen.
While larger trials on remdesivir are still ongoing, early results showed that patients hospitalised with severe illness were discharged quicker from the hospital than those who didn&rsquo;t get the drug.&nbsp;

The Covid-19 pandemic may lead to 95,000 additional tuberculosis-related deaths in India over the next five years due to disruptions in health services and delays in diagnosis and treatment. A&nbsp;new modelling study, published in the European Respiratory Journal, estimates at least 1,10,000 additional deaths from TB in India, China, and South Africa. Researchers examined&nbsp;the impact of various reductions in social contact and on health services due to Covid-19.&nbsp;They hypothesised that social distancing might reduce the incidence of TB&nbsp;as the bacteria that causes the disease is transmitted&nbsp;via air droplets. However,&nbsp;substantial health service disruption may lead to&nbsp;reduction in case detection and treatment success.
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New immunotherapy drug gives hope for prostate cancer

Dec 02, 2019 09:46 IST

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