Health

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.

Thousands of children, in all age groups, from across the country have been tested positive for Covid-19, during the second wave, creating panic among parents. The experts say that though most children develop mild disease, there is a need to keep them protected from getting infection. Dr. Narendra Kumar Arora, a paediatric gastroenterologist and a senior member of the National Covid-19 Task Force tells how to treat and care for children who have contracted Covid-19.

Though children are vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, still the majority of them are asymptomatic and only 1-2% had to go for hospitalization. Dr Somasekar cautioned the parents about the chances of transmission of infection from adults, and the increasing gastrointestinal symptoms among children these days.

India’s first indigenous tumour antigen SPAG9 was discovered by Dr Anil Suri in 1998who is heading the Cancer Research Program at NII. In a recentdevelopment, theSPAG9 antigen has received the trademark ASPAGNIITM. Currently, ASPAGNIITM is being used in dendritic cell (DC) based immunotherapy in cervical, ovarian cancer and will also be used in breast cancer.

Niti Aayog’s Dr. VK Paul, member-Health, said, “As per Our World in Data, the number of people who have received at least one dose of vaccine in India is 17.2 crore. We have overtaken the US in terms of the number of people in our country who have received the first dose of vaccine,” adding that the Centre would have to buy time till we are able to vaccinate our population.

Indian Scientists have developed a nanorods-based oxygen sensor which works at room temperature with assistance of UV irradiation and can detect oxygen gas concentrations in places such as underground mines, at higher altitudes, inside aeroplanes and research labs.

ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology Park), a not-for-profit foundation established by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, with support from the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, in collaboration with Bangalore based HealthTech startup Niramai and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has developed XraySetu specifically designed to identify COVID positive patients even from low-resolution Chest X-Ray images sent over Whatsapp.

All Aarogya Setu users will get the option to “Update the Vaccination Status“ if they have not taken the revised self-assessment. On taking the self-assessment on Aarogya Setu, those users who have taken at least one dose of COVID19 Vaccine will get the tab of “partially vaccination/vaccinated (unverified)“ on the home screen of Aarogya Setu. This is based on the declaration of vaccination status given by the user during the self-assessment. The unverified status becomes verified after an OTP based check from the CoWIN backend.