Month: May 2021

The Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) in Kerala, an institute under the Department of Science and Technology has developed a multiplex RT-PCR kit, where the validation shows the kit has 97.3 per cent sensitivity and 100 per cent specificity in the Covid-19 detection. This means it is unlikely to show any false positives and has only a 2.7 per cent chance of showing a false negative.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has validated the kit at the National Institute of Virology in Pune, and found it satisfactory.

“The kit developed by SCTIMST targets two SARS CoV2 genes: RdRp and ORFb-nsp14, and the human RNAse P gene as the internal control. The kit is based on multiplex Taqman chemistry, amplifying all three genes in a single reaction. The amplification time for the assay is 45 minutes, besides the time required for the RNA isolation from nasopharyngeal swab samples,” the statement says.

ORFb-nsp14 is one of the least mutated genes in Covid-19. Currently, there are no kits in the market having ORF-nsp14 as the target.
The mutations on the commonly used S, R and N gene of the virus interfere with the result of an RT-PCR test. For example, the changes in the spike protein of B.1.1.7 (first found in the UK) resulted in the failure of probes for the S gene.

The turnaround time using the kit developed by SCTIMST is also faster. A normal RT-PCR takes about five to six hours to be completed. SCTIMST signed a non-exclusive license MoU with Huwel Lifesciences in Hyderabad on May 14 this year to commercialize the kit.

ANI

 A large convoy of farmers from Punjab’s Taran Taran on Thursday left for Delhi border points where farmers have been protesting since November last year against the Centre’s new agricultural laws.
The convoy, which includes women and youth, left Tarn Taran’s Harike on trollies and tractors. “They are going to Delhi for protests under the rotation policy. Many farmers who have been there for long will return their families. We will remain camped there until the Centre scraps the new farm laws,” Sukhwinder Singh Sabra, Secretary, Kisan Majdooe Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) said.
Responding to recent hike in fertiliser subsidy by the central government, Sabra said the move is intended to deceive farmers, adding that if the government truly cared it should scrap these new farm laws as well as the amended electricity law.
“It is true that the impact of COVID-19 is on the rise but if farmers quit the movement due to its fear, then farmers will 100 per cent die,” he added
The farmer leader further said that all farmers will register their protest against the laws on May 26, which is the anniversary of the government, by putting black flags at their homes and on their vehicles.

ANI

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed on Wednesday his deep concerns over the recent outbreak of anti-Semitic incidents in the country following the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity providing security and advice to Jewish people in the United Kingdom, reported a 320 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents in a week since the outbreak of clashes between Israel and Palestine. The CST also reported a spate of antisemitic messages directed at university Jewish societies and their members on social media or messaging apps. “I share his horror at the outbreak of anti-Semitic incidents and the government has conveyed that message loud and clear to those who are responsible for enforcing the law against hate crime of that kind. But obviously, we will continue to work to support the Jewish community in any way that we can,” Johnson said in Parliament in response to a question posed by Labour leader Keir Starmer.
Johnson added the government was “working closely with the CST to ensure victims come forward and report attacks”. ANI/Sputnik

A teenager from Pune has gained huge popularity on social media by capturing one of the clearest pictures of the moon. Prathamesh Jaju, a 16-year-old boy from Pune, shot around 50,000 pictures and stitched them together to get the clearest and sharpest image of the moon. It took him around 40 hours to process the images and videos.

Jaju said, “I captured the image on May 3 at 1 am. I captured for around four hours with videos and images. It took 38-40 hours for processing. The reason behind 50,000 pictures was to get the clearest picture of the moon. I stitched them together and sharpened the image to see crisp details of the moon. The raw data was 100 GB and after processing it, the data turned bigger so it was around 186 GB. When I stitched them together, the final file was around 600 MB.”
Asked about how he got the idea to do such a thing, the teenager said, “I read some articles and saw some YouTube videos to learn how to capture these images. I learned the processing.”

Jaju is a student of Class 10 in Vidya Bhavan School, Pune. His father runs a computer sales and repairing business while his mother is a housewife. Besides photography, Jaju likes athletics. He even participated in one national competition in athletics. He is also very active on social media and has more than 26,500 followers on Instagram.
Sharing about his future aspirations, the teenager said, “I want to become an astrophysicist and study astronomy professionally but astrophotography is just a hobby for me right now.”
Jaju shared his images of the moon on social media platforms like Instagram that have over 11,000 likes.

“This image is an HDR Composite of two different images made to give it a three-dimensional effect. This is my most detailed and clearest shot of the third quarter Mineral Moon,” he said.

“Our eyes cannot resolute the colours of the minerals on the moon. The blue tones reveal areas rich in ilmenite which contains iron, titanium and oxygen. While the orange and purple colours show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. The white/grey tomes refer to areas of greater exposure to sunlight,” Jaju wrote on social media while describing his captured image of the moon. 

ANI

Singapore High Commissioner Simon Wong on Tuesday came down heavily on Arvind Kejriwal for his tweet on an alleged dangerous variant of COVID-19, saying that Singapore reserves the right to invoke his country’s online fake news Act on the Delhi Chief Minister’s assertions.

He also said that a person holding government office “must not promote false news”. “In Singapore, we have Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) to mitigate misinformation and we reserve right to invoke POFMA on assertions made by CM (Delhi),” said Simon Wong.

POFMA’s primary tools to counter online falsehoods are the correction directions – these directions do not require the online falsehood to be removed. In more serious cases, a stop communication or disabling direction may be used.

Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal had yesterday made a tweet about an alleged “new form” of COVID-19 in Singapore and claimed it is very dangerous for children.
“New form of coronavirus in Singapore is said to be very dangerous for children. It could reach Delhi in the form of a third wave. My appeal to the Central government: 1. Cancel all air services with Singapore with immediate effect 2. Work on vaccine alternatives for children on a priority basis,” the chief minister had said.

Kejriwal’s remarks evoked responses and caused some alarm. Singapore’s Health Ministry came out with a strong rebuttal, saying there is no “Singapore variant” and some COVID-19 patients tested in recent weeks show B.1.617 strain that was first discovered in India.

The Indian envoy to Singapore was also summoned by the country’s foreign ministry after which he clarified that Delhi CM has no competence to pronounce on COVID variants or civil aviation policy. Later, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also commented on the matter. Jaishankar asserted that Kejriwal doesn’t speak for India.
Simon Wong said he felt reassured by the remarks of MEA and the External Affairs Minister. “I think it is incumbent on Delhi government if they want to talk about more things dealing with domestic politics. I feel that as a Singapore High Commissioner here, my task is to deal with bilateral relationship. We don’t dabble into domestic politics so I leave it to the Government of India and political parties to sort it out. I am heartened and very assured by clarification made by MEA and also the External Affairs Minister,” he said.

He said Kejriwal’s remarks will not impact the bilateral cooperation and “the unfortunate episode should be put behind and we must focus and help each other in the fight against COVID-19 in both countries”. “It (Delhi CM’s remarks) would not impact our (India-Singapore) hand-in-hand fight against COVID. As witnessed yesterday and today with transportation of medical aid, we’re working together. Pandemic knows no boundary or political colour,” he said.

ANI

As Rajasthan is seeing a surge in the number of cases Black Fungus (Mucormycosis), the state government on Wednesday declared the disease to be considered as an epidemic in the state.

The state government declared this under “The Rajasthan Epidemic Diseases Act, 2020”. According to sources, so far more than 130 cases of the fungal infection caused by the steroid administered in the treatment of COVID-19 infection have been reported in Delhi.

On May 18, the Haryana government also formed regulations called, “The Haryana Epidemic Diseases (Mucormycosis) Regulations, 2021”.
Till now, cases of black fungus have been reported in various parts of the country including Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar.

As per the Union Health Ministry, Mucormycosis or black fungus is a complication caused by a fungal infection.
People catch mucormycosis by coming in contact with the fungal spores in the environment. It can also develop on the skin after the fungus enters the skin through a cut, scrape, burn, or other type of skin trauma.
According to the ministry, the disease is being detected among patients who are recovering or have recovered from COVID-19.

Meanwhile, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, is reporting more than 20 cases of ‘Black Fungus’ (Mucormycosis) disease on a daily basis, said Dr MV Padma Srivastava, Head, Department of Neurology, AIIMS. “In Delhi’s AIIMS, there are more than 20 cases of mucormycosis reported in emergency today. Mycormycosis was always there in those who are immunocompromised, diabetic, high steroid dose, but it was never in this number,” Dr Padma, Head, Neurology Department, AIIMS, said.

“She said that earlier the number was in single-digit. But, now we have crossed three-digit mark and are getting more than 20 cases of the infection every single day. We have made mucor wards separately at AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Trauma Centre, and AIIMS Jhajjar,” Dr Padma added.

She further informed that the index of suspicion of contracting Black Fungus is very high because of low immunity. If COVID happens to diabetic people, sugar should be strictly controlled and there should be rational use of steroids.
“Cases of mucormycosis began being reported two months ago and states like Gujarat and Maharashtra have, so far, reported more than 1,800 cases. Now, Delhi is also reporting a high number of cases and a maximum of those are the ones who have taken high doses of steroids or are diabetic,” she added.

The Max hospital chain across India has reported 50 cases of black fungus, and in Delhi alone, the numbers are 25. “COVID-19 strain may also be the reason and we need to do genome sequencing to understand this disease more,” Dr Padma said.

Dr DS Rana, Chairperson, Sri Gangaram Hospital, informed that the hospital has as many as 48 admitted Black Fungus patients and 16 are in the waiting list.

ANI

India on Wednesday reported the highest number of Covid-19 deaths, with the official figure spiking to 4,529, although the number of fresh positive cases has dropped in the last few days.

Health experts have said that the trend may continue to rise for another week at least before the numbers start settling down in proportion to the number of daily cases. Experts highlighted that the severity of the infection that is directly affecting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in a very short span, especially the oxygen parameters, is responsible for deaths in the second wave.

While in the first wave of Covid-19 that forced the country to rethink its health infrastructure, its functioning was still limited to the urban population majorly.

However, since the second wave hit, variants of Covid-19 spread in rural India have upscaled the death toll massively. The reason, as per health experts, isthe severity of the infection followed by inadequate health infrastructure.
Although cases pan-India are showing a downward trend with 2,67,334 positive cases as per the official data of the Union Health Ministry, the number of deaths remains a concern.

While speaking on the death toll, Dr V K Monga, public health expert said, “It is true that the total number of cases of Covid-19 and positivity rate have declined in the last 10 days or so but the number of deaths are still very high. It is because a large number of patients are still admitted in ICU in various hospitals and because of medical interventions (many may be on rigorous life support) they may survive for many days. However, because of the complications of Covid-19 and prolonged stay in hospitals, they may lose the battle, thus resulting in increased figures of death.”
Dr Monga also specifically stressed that the trend may continue for another week or so before settling down in proportion to the number of daily cases.

Dr Suresh Kumar, Director of Delhi Government’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital said, “This is a matter of concern because we have seen this for the first time. In Delhi, the death toll is coming down but if we see in other states death tolls are escalating. There are overall 4,000 deaths in India, which is a matter of concern and in this wave that we are seeing more severe cases.”

“If we compare with last year, the oxygen level of patients is dropping to 60 per cent to 70 per cent on an average. We have also seen patients dying while on their way to the hospital. We have seen severe patients who were brought to the hospital when his/her oxygen level is dipping down and are in need of ICU beds immediately and all these are directly responsible for the higher death toll,” Dr Kumar added.

Maharashtra tops the chart of registering the maximum number of deaths with a total of 83,777, followed by Karnataka which has recorded as many as 22,838 Covid-19 deaths since the onset of the pandemic last year. Delhi and Tamil Nadu are next on the list with 22,111 and 18,369 deaths reported due to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Dr Rajiv Parakh, Chairman Vascular Surgery, Medanta said, “There are more than 4,000 reported deaths taking place and of course there are many more who have not even tested and passed away. The death rate in the second wave is high because this time it has struck a large number of population.”
Dr Parakh also stressed that “the intensity and the mutation capacity have properly been responsible for the severity. Last time the virus was not as severe and virulent compare to the second wave”.

Doctors alerted that patients or families should never start any treatment on their own and once the oxygen level drops below 92 per cent, one should immediately get admitted to the hospital or consult an expert.
The death toll is on a continuous rise with each day breaking the last day’s record. On May 18, the death toll reached 4,329, marking it as highest till the death toll reached 4,529 on Wednesday. On May 15, 16 and 17 reported deaths figures were 4,077, 4,098, and 4,334 respectively.

According to the official data released by the Union Health Ministry, India’s cumulative death toll is 2,83,248 with 32,26,719 active Covid-19 cases. 

ANI