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There has been absolutely no compromise in clinical testing of COVID-19 vaccines: Gangandeep Kang

Noted clinical scientist Gagandeep Kang said in India, out of pocket payments for healthcare continue to be highest in the world and it is one of many reasons why many families are driven into poverty. This kind of ”catastrophic health expenditure” actually winds up promoting further health inequities in the system, Kang said.

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Immunotherapy drugs are riskier for treatment of cancer patients, study suggests

The researchers found that patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors had a higher risk of heart problems compared to those who were not being treated in this way. Within six months of starting treatment, patients with lung cancer on PD1 inhibitors had double the risk of heart problems; malignant melanoma patients had a 4.3-fold increased risk if they were being treated with PD1 inhibitors and a nearly five-fold risk if they were receiving the CTLA-4 inhibitor.

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India’s population is stabilising as total fertility rate declines across states

Of the 17 states analysed in the NFHS-5 data, except for Bihar, Manipur and Meghalaya, all other states have a TFR of 2.1 or less, which implies that most states have attained replacement level fertility.The first set of findings from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), conducted in 2019-20 were released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India on Saturday, December 12th, four years after the last survey (NFHS-4, 2015-16).

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Digital registration, allocating manufacturers: Guidelines for Covid-19 vaccination drive

The Covid-19 vaccine will be offered first to healthcare workers, frontline workers and to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities based on the evolving pandemic situation, and finally to the remaining population based on the disease epidemiology and vaccine availability.
At the vaccination site, only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated in accordance with the prioritisation, and there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations.
Under phase one of the vaccination, it is planned to vaccinate nearly 30 crore population.

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Health ministry’s telemedicine service eSanjeevani records 1 million teleconsultations

The roll-out of eSanjeevani in India is supposedly the first-of-its-kind of digital transformation in the delivery of health services at national scale by a developing country.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, eSanjeevani not only brought about a huge digital transformation in the delivery of health services but had also boosted the digital health ecosystem in the country, the statement said.

The eSanjeevani initiative of the health ministry is serving in two streams in 28 states and union territories.

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‘New variant’ of coronavirus identified in Britain

“We’ve currently identified over 1,000 cases with this variant predominantly in the South of England although cases have been identified in nearly 60 different local authority areas.”We do not know the extent to which this is because of the new variant but no matter its cause we have to take swift and decisive action which unfortunately is absolutely essential to control this deadly disease while the vaccine is rolled out,”said Health Secretary Matt Hancock said

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Bacteria that travel across continents in atmospheric dust can impact climate & ecosystems

According to scientists, including those from the University of Granada (UGR) in Spain, these aerosols act like a “launch vehicle” for bacteria, and may pose risk of disease transmission across continents.

They explained that iberulites are giant atmospheric bioaerosols made of multiple minerals, measuring on average one hundred microns approximately.

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Next four to six months could be worst of Covid-19 pandemic: Bill Gates

“Overall, when I did the forecasts in 2015, I talked about the deaths potentially being higher. So, this virus could be more fatal than it is. We didn’t get the worst-case. But the thing that has surprised me is that the economic impact in the US and around the world has been much greater than the forecasts that I made five years ago,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said.

Gates said that his foundation had been funding a lot of the research for the vaccines.

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