Page 3 - Corona

Social workers experienced depression during Covid pandemic: Study

The study also found that the social workers most affected by mental health problems tended to be younger, less experienced and less established in their profession

Health Ministry awards Porter Prize 2023 for successfully managing Covid-19

The Union Health Ministry has been awarded the Porter Prize 2023 for successfully combating the COVID-19 crisis. The prize was announced at The India Dialog, organized by Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) and US Asia Technology Management Center (USATMC) at Stanford University on February 23-24, a health ministry statement said on Thursday. The award was presented to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in the virtual presence of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Secretary, MoHFW, Rajesh Bhushan, it said. The theme of the two-day conference was The Indian Economy 2023: Innovation, Competitiveness and Social Progress. The prize recognizes the strategy followed by the government of India in managing COVID-19, the approach and involvement of various stakeholders, especially the involvement of ASHA workers in the industry to create PPE kits, the statement said. The idea of vaccine development and vaccine manufacturing and the scale that India achieved was ...

Low breastfeeding rates in infants born to mothers with Covid-19: Research

An international investigation found that during the height of the pandemic, breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact rates were low

Controlling aerosolisation of mucus, jab prevent outcomes of Covid-19

Controlling aerosolization of mucus and vaccination can help prevent serious outcomes of COVID-19 infection say researchers at IIT Madras, Jadavpur University and Northwestern University, US. The researchers used mathematical models to show how viruses infecting mucous lining of the respiratory tract spread as droplets into the lungs, thereby causing serious illnesses and recommend ways to prevent the spread. "The researchers have shown a plausible mechanism for how COVID infection could become lethal. They performed simulation studies to understand the mechanism of transmission of the COVID-19 virus from the nose and throat to the lower respiratory tract," a release from the institute said on Monday. Researchers all over the world have been trying to understand how COVID-19 virus spreads from the nose and throat to the lungs. An idea has been proposed that the virus might move through mucous in the respiratory system but this would take too long. Another idea is that the virus mig

Covid-19 pandemic made 1.6 mn youth idle in Pakistan: World Bank report

A study finds that preschool enrolment in Pakistan dropped by over 15 percentage points by end of 2021 in the post-pandemic era, reported The News International

Researchers reveal Covid-19 infection increases diabetes, disease risk

This research, Kwan says, is one piece of the puzzle that will help researchers understand how to prevent metabolic as well as cardiovascular disease risk in the future

Covid's omicron variant, thought to be milder, can increase diabetes risk

Omicron has been seen as a milder version of Covid compared with earlier strains, leading to lower rates of hospitalization and death than delta and the strain that first emerged from China

Covid vaccines do not increase risk of adverse events, claims Study

COVID-19 vaccines did not cause an increased risk of adverse events such as heart attack, stroke, cardiac arrest, myocarditis, pericarditis, and deep vein thrombosis, according to a study. The research, published in the journal Vaccines, monitored the entire population of the Italian province of Pescara for 18 months, from January 2021 to July 2022. The team led by researchers from the University of Bologna in Italy collected inhabitants' health data and analysed the frequency of a number of serious diseases such as cardiovascular disease, pulmonary embolism and thrombosis. Pulmonary embolism is a blood clot that blocks and stops blood flow to an artery in the lung while thrombosis occurs when blood clots block veins or arteries. The study showed that none of the diseases examined were found to be more frequent among the vaccinated than among the non-vaccinated. "The results obtained clearly show that there was no increased risk of serious diseases among the vaccinated," said ...

Analysis: Shock of war hits world economy at the crossroads post-Covid

"The shock of war on demand and prices has cascaded through the global economy and, in conjunction with COVID and other policy decisions, has created these headwinds to growth," said Robert Kahn

India logs single-day rise of 99 fresh Covid cases, no deaths: Data

India saw a single-day rise of 99 coronavirus infections and no deaths, according to Union health ministry data updated on Friday. The total tally of Covid cases was recorded at 4.46 crore (4,46,83,122) and the death toll stands at 5,30,741, the data updated at 8 am stated. The daily positivity rate has been recorded at 0.06 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was 0.07 per cent, it stated. The active cases have increased from 1,763 to 1,764 on Thursday, according to the health ministry's website. The active cases comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections while the national recovery rate has increased to 98.81 per cent. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has increased to 4,41,50,617. The case fatality rate has been recorded at 1.19 per cent, the data stated. According to the ministry's website, 220.54 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far.

Long Covid cripples millions, best protection is vaccination, say experts

At least 65 million people are thought to have long Covid, according to a latest review of 200 Covid-19 studies

Oil mixed amid weak China economic data, sustained hopes for 2023

Oil prices were mixed on Tuesday after China posted its weakest economic growth in nearly half a century, while its late-22 U-turn in Covid policy

COVID-19 pandemic strongly impacted manufacturing in India: Study

COVID-19 strongly impacted the manufacturing sector in India, according to a study which provides new insight into how countries respond to systemic shocks such as the pandemic. Previous attempts to quantify the impact of COVID-19 mostly looked only at the pandemic in a single dimension, such as gross domestic product or a country's unemployment rate. The latest study, published in PLOS One, explored resilience across a variety of social, economic and political domains in several countries, including the US, Brazil, India, Sweden, New Zealand and Israel. "We found significant discrepancies between what experts had predicted would be the most resilient countries if struck with a pandemic," said Sara Del Valle, from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US. The researchers found that the most pandemic-impacted sectors also differed across countries. The study shows that human health, public administration and defense were strongly impacted in the US and Sweden, while manufacturi

India reports 197 fresh Covid-19 infections; active cases decline

India saw a single-day rise of 197 new coronavirus infections with active cases declining to 2,309, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday. The total tally of Covid cases was recorded at 4.46 crore (4,46,80,583). The overall death toll stands at 5,30,723 with one death reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated. The daily positivity was recorded at 0.10 per cent while the Weekly positivity rate was pegged at 0.11 per cent. Active cases comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.80 per cent, according to the health ministry website. A decrease of 33 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The number of people who have recuperated from the infection surged to 4,41,47,551, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent. According to the ministry's website, 220.15 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country s

Pent-up demand in real estate will continue in 2023: Knight Frank India

Despite geopolitical challenges, the office sector saw a strong recovery in demand and saw a rise of 36 per cent YoY

China suspends visas for South Koreans in apparent retaliatory move

China suspended visas Tuesday for South Koreans to come to the country for tourism or business in apparent retaliation for COVID-19 testing requirements on Chinese travellers. A brief notice posted online by the Chinese Embassy in Seoul said the ban would apply until South Korea lifted its discriminatory measures on entrance by China to the country. No other details were given, although China has threatened to take retaliation against countries that require travellers from China to show a negative test result for COVID-19 taken within the previous 48 hours. China requires the same measures for travellers coming into the country. Beijing has been accused by the World Health Organisation of withholding data on the state of the outbreak in China.

Pfizer CEO rules out talk with China on generic Covid drug Paxlovid license

Bourla said the company had shipped thousands of courses of the treatment in 2022 to China and in the past couple of weeks, had increased that to millions

No reason to worry about new Covid variant Kraken in India yet: Experts

US Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that from just 1 percent of the Covid19 cases in the US in Dec 2022, Kraken variant now accounts for almost 41 percent of all the Covid19 infections

Health workers facing Covid 'burnout', must address health concerns: Expert

Several doctors and nurses who served as frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced tremendous stress, other mental health problems and felt "burnt out", an expert has said while stressing on the need to address their health concerns. There were many incidents wherein doctors and nurses attempted or committed suicide in the world due to depression during the pandemic, Dr Vithyalakshmi Selvaraj, psychiatrist and chief medical officer of the Omaha Insomnia and Psychiatric Services, Nebraska, USA, told PTI. She gave a presentation on 'Long term consequences of COVID-19 infection' at the Indian Science Congress currently underway in Nagpur. Speaking on the sidelines of the presentation, Dr Selvaraj said depression, anxiety and sleeplessness magnified not just in India, but across the world, and there was need to "destigmatise" mental illness and increase awareness to prevent negative outcomes of such disorders. She said a study of 662 adults in India found that more tha

As mercury plummets, increase in patients with respiratory problems

As the mercury goes down, the number of patients with respiratory infections is going up alarmingly.