News and Articles on Ayurveda, Yoga, Kundalini and other Indian way of health and medicines.
Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar has developed a device ‘Jivan Vayu’ which can be used as a substitute of CPAP machine. However, this is Nation’s first such device which functions even without electricity and is adapted to both kinds of oxygen generation units like O2 cylinders and oxygen pipelines in hospitals. These provisions are not available in otherwise existing CPAP machines.
Dozee, a Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and its PSU Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) funded start-up offers ‘contact-free monitoring of the vital parameters of the patients on a normal bed. The innovation has already resulted in the upgrading of over 4,000 hospital beds for Step-Down ICUs across 35 districts in India. In the last months, Dozee has already served over 30,000 patients, saved over 65,000 nursing hours and prompted over 750 timely ICU transfers through its Early Warning System.
India’s first official beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) medical drone delivery experiment is scheduled to begin this week in Gauribidanur, some 80km from Bengaluru.
It is noted that a renowned international magazine in its article has speculated that ‘India has suffered perhaps five-to-seven times “excess deaths” than the official number of COVID-19 fatalities’. It is a speculative article, which is without any basis and seems to be misinformed.
The unsound analysis of the said article is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.
Studies which are used by the magazine as an estimate of excess mortality are not validated tools for determining mortality rate of any country or region.
The so called “evidence” cited by the magazine is a study supposedly done by Christopher Laffler of Virginia Commonwealth University. An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine.
Another evidence given is the study done in Telengana based on insurance claims. Again, there is no peer reviewed scientific data available on suchstudy.
Two other studies relied upon are those done by Psephology groups namely “Prashnam” and “C-Voter” who are well versed in conducting, predicting and analysing poll results. They were never ever associated with public health research. Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times.
By their own submission, the magazine states that ‘such estimates have been extrapolated from patchy and often unreliable local government data, from company records and from analyses of such things as obituaries’.
Union Government has been transparent in its approach to COVID data management. As early as May 2020, to avoid inconsistency in number of deaths being reported, Indian Council of Medical Research has issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’ for correct recording of all deaths as per ICD-10 codes recommended by WHO for mortality coding. States and UTs have been urged through formal communications, multiple video conferences and through deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with laid down guidelines.
Union Health Ministry has also regularly emphasized the need for a robust reporting mechanism for monitoring district wise cases and deaths on a daily basis. States consistently reporting lower number of daily deaths were told to re-check their data. A case in point is the Union Government writing to the State of Bihar to provide detailed date and district wise break-up of the reconciled number of deaths to Union Health Ministry.
It’s a well-known fact that there shall always be difference in mortality recorded during a profound and prolonged public health crisis such as COVID pandemic and well conducted research studies on excess mortalities, usually done after the event when data on mortalities are available from reliable sources. The methodologies for such studies are well established, the data sources are defined as also the valid assumptions for computing mortality.
The multi-instrument facility includes Quadrupole Inductively Couple Plasma Mass Spectrometer fitted with collision reaction cell (QQQ-ICP-MS), and an Inductively Couple Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer with dual detection capability (ICP-OES).
Beneficiaries can now correct mistakes in their Covid vaccination certificates via the Co-WIN digital platform. A new feature on the portal allows beneficiaries to correct their name, year of birth, and gender on vaccination certificates by logging in to http://cowin.gov.in, and raising an issue.
A healthy diet provides 55-60% energy from carbohydrates; 25-30% energy from fats; and 10-15% from proteins for daily requirement of energy,” explains Dr. Laxmaiah, Head, Division of Community Studies, National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.
The 4th June, 2021 was a historic day for TMH, IIT Bombay team and cancer care in India as the first CAR-T cell therapy (a type of gene therapy) was done at the Bone Marrow Transplant unit at ACTREC, Tata Memorial Center in Mumbai. The CAR-T cells were designed and manufactured at Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE) department of IIT Bombay.
The Prime Minister further announced, that 21st June onwards, Government of India will provide free vaccine to all Indian citizens above 18 years of age. Government of India will buy 75% of the total production of the vaccine producers and provide to the states free of cost. No state government would be spending anything for vaccines.
CSIR in collaboration with Laxai Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., has initiated Phase-II clinical trial with anti-helminitic drug Niclosamide for treatment of Covid-19. The trial is a multi-centric, phase-II, randomized, open label clinical study to evaluate efficacy, safety and tolerability of NIclosamide for the treatment of hospitalized Covid-19 patients. Niclosamide has been extensively used in past for treatment of tapeworm’s infection in adults as well as children. The safety profile of this drug has been tested over time and has been found safe for human consumption at different dose levels.
