A WHO Medical Product Alert said that the four substandard products, reported to it in September, are Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup, all stated to be manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd located in Haryana.
Noting that the stated manufacturer has not provided guarantees to WHO on the safety and quality of these products, the alert said that laboratory analysis of samples of each of the four products confirms that they contain unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, both "toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal".
"The substandard products referenced in this alert are unsafe and their use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death," it said, adding that the toxic effects can include abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, inability to pass urine, headache, altered mental state, and acute kidney injury which may lead to death.
All batches of these products should be considered unsafe until they can be analysed by the relevant national regulatory authorities, the WHO said.
While these four products have been identified in The Gambia, it apprehended that they may have been distributed, through informal markets, to other countries or regions, and it "is important to detect and remove these substandard products from circulation to prevent harm to patients".
WHO requests increased surveillance and diligence within the supply chains of countries and regions likely to be affected by these products. Increased surveillance of the informal/unregulated market is also advised, the alert said.
It underlined that all medical products must be approved and obtained from authorised/licensed suppliers, the products' authenticity and physical condition should be carefully checked, and advice taken from a healthcare professional when in doubt.
"If you have these substandard products, please DO NOT use them. If you, or someone you know, have used these products or suffered any adverse reaction/event after use, you are advised to seek immediate medical advice from a qualified healthcare professional and report the incident to the National Regulatory Authority or National Pharmacovigilance Centre," the alert said.
"National regulatory/health authorities are advised to immediately notify WHO if these substandard products are discovered in their respective country," it added.
A variant of concern is the WHO's top category of worrying Covid variants.
The WHO said the Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE), an independent group of experts that periodically monitors and evaluates the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and assesses if specific mutations and combinations of mutations alter the behaviour of the virus, convened on Friday to assess the B.1.1.529 variant, first reported to the world health body from South Africa on November 24.
Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, the TAG-VE has advised WHO that this variant should be designated as a Variant of Concern, and the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a VOC, named Omicron.
Countries are asked to enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database, such as GISAID and report initial cases/clusters associated with VOC infection to WHO through the IHR mechanism.
Countries are also advised that where capacity exists and in coordination with the international community, they should perform field investigations and laboratory assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, severity, the effectiveness of public health and social measures, diagnostic methods, immune responses, antibody neutralisation, or other relevant characteristics.
India Vision Institute (IVI) CEO Vinod Daniel said that although the cost of a pair of glasses is as low as Rs 250, the lack of access has made the problem of preventable blindness acute in India.
In most cases, a pair of glasses is all required for those suffering from blindness-related ailments, including refractive error. He attributes the situation to a range of factors, including lack of awareness and lack of human resources.
India has one-third of the people it requires in optometry.
"We need 130,00 people but have only 45,000. They include optometrists, ophthalmic assistants and people who do primary eye care," he said.
The need in India is huge. "Once you turn 40-45, you need a pair of glasses. Five to seven per cent of children in India are myopic and they need glasses to study better. For older people, it's a huge issue, especially in villages. The problem becomes more acute for those who work with hands," he said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that India loses more than a lakh crore in productivity every year due to preventable blindness.
Research shows the cost of glasses is in fact very cheap but it is awareness and access to an optometric or an optical outlet that is an issue India needs to address.
Many colleges offer four-year standard optometry course. They also offer two-year diploma. In some institutions, there is a one-year course for machine technicians.
He feels there is not only the need for more colleges but also more mechanisms to deliver the courses. There is also a need for online courses and to increase the intake of students.
Optometry as a profession is still evolving in India while it is well developed in countries like the United States, Britain and Australia.
"Some countries are struggling. India is probably at half way," he said.
He, however, believes that India is at a very exciting stage as in the last 10 years there has been a lot of interest with regard to optometry and how it could assist in eye care.
He is confident that optometry is a profession that would pay as people entering in the sphere will get jobs.
"Once upon a time everybody wanted to be a doctor or an engineer. Then the dental profession started and I hope optometry will be like that. There is a market and finding jobs will be easier."
The second World Congress of Optometry, which concluded here on Wednesday, saw the world's leading eye health experts discussing new ideas, sharing research and knowledge from various facets of optometry.
About 1,300 delegates from 45 countries attended the conference with the theme "accessible, quality vision and eye health".
The WHO estimates 285 million to be visually impaired, of which 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision.
Globally, uncorrected refractive errors are the main cause of moderate and severe visual impairment. Cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in middle and low income countries.
The WHO aims to reduce by 2019 the prevalence of avoidable visual impairment by 25 per cent.
The World Council of Optometry (WCO) envisions accomplishing this by placing a strong and equitable eye health system within which optometry plays a valuable and essential role.
Pattnaik has mentioned that TB is not an incurable disease but it can be cured with proper medication.
The awareness programme was attended by Director of Health Services, Dr Kailash Chandra Das and TB Advisor of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Rajendra Ransingh.
Many students were also seen, on the occasion, displaying placards with TB awareness messages written on it.
Talking to media persons Patnaik said, "As it has been assumed that there are more TB patients in India, so the State and Central Government has taken an initiative to aware people about the disease. People can be cured if they are aware about the disease and for that purpose we created the sand art."
Dr Das also briefed media persons, saying, "TB has become a challengeable disease for Odisha, the country and the whole world. It can be cured completely if every citizen becomes aware that it is a curable disease and the government is providing effective medicines for it."
A new study by the WHO estimates that 600,000 children died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by dirty air in 2016.
The report, "Air pollution and child health: Prescribing clean air", examines the heavy toll of both ambient (outside) and household air pollution on the health of the world's children, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
The report is being launched on the eve of WHO's first ever Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health.
It reveals when pregnant women are exposed to polluted air, they are more likely to give birth prematurely, and have small, low birth-weight children.
Alarmingly, 14 out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India.
WHO Global Ambient Air Quality Database (update 2018), released in May, says the air pollution related mortality and disease burden India faces is also the highest in the world.
More than two million deaths occur in India prematurely every year, accounting for 25 per cent of the global deaths due to poor air quality.
The air pollution related mortality and disease burden India faces is also the highest in the world. More than two million deaths occur in India prematurely every year, accounting for 25 per cent of the global deaths due to poor air quality.
Environmental group Climate Trends, based here, says most Indian cities, unlike New Delhi, do not have an emergency response plan to tackle air pollution.
While some of the cities like Patna and Varanasi have recently formulated action plans, there are none in place to issue advisories or mitigate the pollution at the source level instantly as in the case of the Graded Response Action Plan to combat air pollution.
It says the summer-time pollution too this year was rampant as the National Capital Region experienced dust storms coupled with problems of pollution at the local level.
The Graded Response Action Plan in cities like Delhi is only being implemented during the winter months while the pattern of pollution is clearly indicating that there is a problem throughout the year, Climate Trends Senior Researcher Aishwarya Sudhir told IANS.
The WHO report says air pollution also impacts neurodevelopment and cognitive ability and can trigger asthma and childhood cancer.
Children who have been exposed to high levels of air pollution may be at greater risk for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease later in life.
"Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
"This is inexcusable. Every child should be able to breathe clean air so they can grow and fulfil their full potential."
One reason why children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of air pollution is that they breathe more rapidly than adults and so absorb more pollutants.
They also live closer to the ground, where some pollutants reach peak concentrations -- at a time when their brains and bodies are still developing.
In addition, newborns and small children are often at home. If the family is burning fuels like wood and kerosene for cooking, heating and lighting, they will be exposed to higher levels of pollution than children who spend more time outside the home.
"Air pollution is stunting our children's brains, affecting their health in more ways than we suspected. But there are many straight-forward ways to reduce emissions of dangerous pollutants," Maria Neira, Director with the Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at WHO, said.
The study is an analysis of what the WHO says is the world's most comprehensive database on ambient air pollution. The organisation collected the data from more than 4,300 cities and 108 countries, reports CNN.
People in Asia and Africa face the biggest problems, according to the study.
More than 90 per cent of air pollution-related deaths happen there, but cities in the Americas, Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean also have air pollution levels that are beyond what the WHO considers healthy.
The new WHO data show that US cities on the more polluted side of the list include Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Fresno, California; Indianapolis; and the Elkhart-Goshen area of Indiana.
Peshawar and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, have some of the highest particulate air pollution levels in the database. Varanasi and Kanpur in India; Cairo; and Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, also show higher levels.
"I'm afraid what is dramatic is that air pollution levels still remain at dangerously high levels in many parts of the world," CNN quoted Maria Neira, director of the WHO's Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, as saying.
"No doubt that air pollution represents today not only the biggest environmental risk for health, but I will clearly say that this is a major, major challenge for public health at the moment and probably one of the biggest ones we are contemplating."
Particle pollution, a mix of solid and liquid droplets in the air, can get sucked into and embedded deep in your lungs when you breathe. That can lead to health conditions including asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), according to the study.
These outdoor particulates -- including sulphate, nitrates and black carbon -- are largely created by car and truck traffic, manufacturing, power plants and farming. In total, air pollution caused about 4.2 million deaths in 2016, it added.
"Many of the world's megacities exceed WHO's guideline levels for air quality by more than five times, representing a major risk to people's health," Neira said. This is "a very dramatic problem that we are facing now".
Cleaner air accounts for in cities like like Wenden, Arizona (population 2,882), or Cheyenne, Wyoming (population 64,019).
The Eureka-Arcata-Fortuna area of California; Battlement Mesa, Colorado; Wasilla, Alaska; Gillette, Wyoming; and Kapaa, Hawaii, are all on the cleaner-air list.
One of the bigger US cities with cleaner air is Honolulu, according to the WHO data.
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way the body processes blood sugar (glucose).
The study found that people working irregular or rotating shifts with usual night shifts were 44 per cent more likely to have Type 2 diabetes.
In addition, compared to day workers, all shift workers were more likely to have Type 2 diabetes, except for permanent night shift workers, the researchers mentioned.
"We see a dose-response relationship between frequency of night shift work and Type 2 diabetes, where the more often people do shift work, the greater their likelihood of having the disease, regardless of genetic predisposition," said Ceiine Vetter, Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
"This helps us understand one piece of the puzzle: frequency of night shift work seems to be an important factor," Vetter added.
For the study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, the team examined data from more than 270,000 people, including 70,000 who provided in-depth lifetime employment information and a sub-group of more than 44,000 for whom genetic data were available.
More than 6,000 people in the sample population had Type 2 diabetes.
Using information on more than 100 genetic variants that are associated with Type 2 diabetes, the research team developed a genetic risk score that they used to assign a value to each participant.
The results showed that those with the highest genetic risk scores were almost four times as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes compared to individuals who had lower genetic risk scores.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) the global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7 per cent to 8.5 per cent in the adult population. The majority of people with diabetes are affected by Type 2 diabetes.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was elected this year to head the Geneva-based organisation, announced her appointment on Tuesday morning.
A leading medical researcher and health policy expert, Swaminathan will be incharge of WHO programmes.
Besides being the director-general of the ICMR, she is concurrently the secretary of the Department of Health Research in India's Health Ministry.
The WHO announcement described her as "a globally recognized researcher on tuberculosis and HIV, she brings with her 30 years of experience in clinical care and research and has worked throughout her career to translate research into impactful programmes".
A paediatrician, Swaminathan graduated from the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune, got her MD degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and did a fellowship at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.
She is the daughter of M.S. Swaminathan, the agricultural scientist acclaimed as the father of India's Green Revolution.
She has been the director of the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis in Chennai and was the coordinator of a special programme for research and training in tropical diseases jointly sponsored by several international organisations in Geneva.
The WHO South East Asia Region includes India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
The global health body said that there is a need for countries to identify the package of interventions best suited to their challenges -- whether that means focusing on strengthening TB services, accelerating case detection or investing in research and development.
"All countries face unique challenges, meaning they should each adapt the regional and global strategies to their context," said a statement issued by the WHO's South East Asia Region Office.
"We must avoid taking one-size-fits-all approach, and must instead seek out and embrace tailored solutions that meet specific needs and challenges."
The five-day 70th Regional Committee Session of WHO South East Asia Region concluded in Male on Sunday.
According to the global health body, by planning effectively and making smart, high-impact interventions, countries across the Southeast Asia Region can lift TB's significant burden and end the disease as a public health threat once and for all.
Although the region accounts for approximately one quarter of the world's population, it has nearly half the number of new TB cases and close to 40 per cent of TB deaths globally.
In recognition of TB's outsized burden, accelerating progress towards the 2030 target -- which requires a 90 per cent reduction in TB deaths and 80 per cent decrease in TB incidence -- is now one of WHO South-East Asia Region's flagship priority areas of work.
The WHO also wants more emphasis to be given on leveraging collective strengths through greater inter-country cooperation.
The global body says across the South-East Asia Region, an estimated 65 million people are pushed into poverty due to out-of-pocket health-care payments, with the cost of medicines being one of the main causes.
"Overcoming barriers and ensuring all people everywhere can access essential medicines is one of WHO South-East Asia's priority areas of work," said Poonam Singh Khetrapal, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region.
"It is vital to achieve universal health coverage, and with it the Sustainable Development Goal of health and well-being for all," Khetrapal said.
She was speaking at the 70th Regional Committee Session of WHO South East Asia Region being held in Male.
"Poor-quality or unsafe medicines likewise affects peoples' ability to access the treatment they need, when they need it, while weak supply chains and inefficient procurement provide similar barriers," she said.
Stating that significant progress has been made in recent years, including the creation of the South-East Asia Regulatory Network (SEARN) in 2016, which pools the Region's regulatory resources to enhance the safety and quality of medicines, Khetrapal called for the need to build on that progress and strengthen regional cooperation in a range of areas to further address this critical issue.
She also outlined few key areas where countries can work together, and with WHO, to drive substantial gains in access to medicines across the Region-- scaling up of inter country and regional collaboration on public procurement and pricing and fully operationalize the SEARN.
Other key areas include countries to improve antimicrobial stewardship by applying the Access, watch and Reserve system.
The conference which ends on September 10 also saw the global health body calling for immediate measures against vector-borne diseases in South East Asia region.
It called for an urgent need for more trained entomologists in the region, followed by collaboration of cross-border programmes on vector control.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), countries also need to establish and strengthen effective entomological surveillance systems.
The surveillance systems can help study local mosquito species, their susceptibility to insecticides, monitor insecticide resistance, as well as vector and human behaviours that may allow mosquitoes to avoid interventions and thereby maintain disease transmission.
The data includes confirmed, suspected and probable cases recorded in Guinea Conakry and Sierra Leone until Dec 31 and in Liberia until Dec 28.
The country most severely affected by the epidemic is Sierra Leone, where 9,633 infections and 2,827 deaths have been reported, followed by Liberia with 8,018 infections and 3,423 deaths.
Meanwhile, in Guinea Conakry, there were 2,730 infections and 1,739 deaths recorded in 2014.
This is the worst Ebola epidemic since the virus was discovered in 1976, approximately 100 km from the Ebola river in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder affecting many joints, including those in the hands and feet.
The study showed that the risk of seropositive RA - when patients have antibodies in their blood that help identify the disease - was reduced by 37 per cent for those who sustained smoking cessation for 30 or more years compared with those who recently quit smoking.
"Our study is one of the first to show that a behaviour change of prolonged smoking cessation may actually delay or even prevent the onset of seropositive RA, suggesting lifestyle changes may modify risk for development of a systemic rheumatic disease," said Jeffrey Sparks from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US.
Patients who have seropositive RA tend to have a more severe disease course with more joint deformities, disability, and inflammation outside of the joints.
On the other hand, there was no association of smoking with seronegative RA - when patients have no antibodies in their blood that help identify the disease - suggesting a different pathogenesis than seropositive RA, said the study, published in the journal, Arthritis Care & Research.
Smoking has been known to be a major risk factor for various diseases including heart disease and cancer.
According to the World Health Organisation, rheumatoid arthritis tends to strike during the most productive years of adulthood, between the ages of 20 and 40 and is more common among women.
For the study, the researchers included 230,732 women.
The central group will comprise experts from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), World Health Organisation (WHO), Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Women and Child Development along with experts of meteorology, nutrition and agricultural science.
Vardhan also chaired a meeting of experts who deliberated upon the factors causing high child mortality in the reported Acute Encephalitis Syndrome/Japanese Encephalitis (AES/JE) cases in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar and the immediate measures to be taken up to prevent them.
"We discussed the socio-economic profile of the households which have reported such cases, their nutrition profiles, ongoing heatwave, reported high percentage of hypoglycemia in children who have died, prevailing health infrastructure in the district and other factors that could significantly be considered in these cases," the minister said.
To help identify depression early, scientists have now enhanced a technology that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to sift through sound of your voice to gauge whether you are depressed or not.
Computing science researchers from University of Alberta in Canada have improved technology for identifying depression through vocal cues.
The study, conducted by Mashrura Tasnim and Professor Eleni Stroulia, builds on past research that suggests that the timbre of our voice contains information about our mood.
Using standard benchmark data sets, Tasnim and Stroulia developed a methodology that combines several Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to recognize depression more accurately using acoustic cues.
A realistic scenario is to have people use an app that will collect voice samples as they speak naturally.
"The app, running on the user's phone, will recognize and track indicators of mood, such as depression, over time. Much like you have a step counter on your phone, you could have a depression indicator based on your voice as you use the phone," said Stroulia.
Depression is ranked by WHO as the single largest contributor to global disability. It is also the major contributor to suicide deaths.
The ultimate goal, said researchers, is to develop meaningful applications from this technology.
Such a tool could prove useful to support work with care providers or to help individuals reflect on their own moods over time.
"This work, developing more accurate detection in standard benchmark data sets, is the first step," added Stroulia while presenting the paper at the Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence recently.
A WHO spokeswoman said that it was not clear at this point to what extent the variant was responsible for the rapid increase in cases in India in recent months, DPA news agency reported.
There are many factors that could have contributed to this, she said. For example, festivals and other events with many participants may have accelerated infections.
The British coronavirus variant may also be affecting India’s epidemiological situation.
In India, more than 350,000 infections were reported within 24 hours on Monday, more than any country has reported in that timespan. With its 1.3 billion inhabitants, India has recorded a total of more than 17 million infections.
The British, South African and Brazilian variants of Covid-19 have all been classified by the WHO as “variants of concern.”
The newest variant was first detected in India on December 1, 2020.
According to the WHO, a variant is considered worrying if it spreads more easily, causes more serious cases of the disease, bypasses the immune system or reduces the effectiveness of known treatments.
Overall, the number of reported infections per week has been increasing for nine weeks, while the number of reported deaths has been increasing for six weeks, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Monday.
“There were almost as many cases last week as in the first five months of the pandemic combined,” said Tedros. In India in particular, the situation is “more than heartbreaking.”
The WHO did not have the latest number of infections reported within a week on its website as of Tuesday. On April 19, it reported almost 5.7 million cases worldwide within a week, some 400,000 more than the week before.
On the Gisaid platform, which contains genetic sequences of influenza and the coronavirus, more than 850 sequences of Covid-19 from more than 18 countries had been uploaded by April 23. Most came from India, Britain, the US and Singapore.
However, this does not give an accurate picture of the distribution, as many countries sequence significantly less, others not at all due to a lack of capacity.
The research, funded by Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), also said that less than one-third of the population walk for ten minutes a day.
"The physical activity pattern among the city residents has been found to be very poor with 59.2 per cent of the population reporting that they were not active and didn't have any intention of being more active in the future," the study, conducted by Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital here, said.
According to World Health Organisation, physical inactivity is one of the major risk factors for rapidly escalating non-communicable diseases (NCDs) with an increase in healthcare costs.
"Around 10 per cent of those interviewed said that they suffered from NCDs like diabetes, high-blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases," E Venkata Rao, who headed the first-of-its kind study in Odisha, said.
Physical inactivity has been found to be the fourth leading cause of global mortality, he said.
"NCDs account for nearly 50 per cent of all deaths in India though they are largely preventable if the risk factors involved in it are reigned in," Rao said, adding that rural communities have been found to be more physically active than their urban counterparts.
"Antibiotic resistance is one of the most important global health issues of our times. Global cooperation to tackle antimicrobial resistance is essential and is a key area for US India collaboration for me and for my health team across the US mission in India," US Ambassador to India Kenneth I. Juster said at a programme here.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) joined hands with the US Consulate here in establishing India's first National Antimicrobial Resistance Hub in Kolkata on Monday.
"An estimated 7,00,000 people die each year globally due to drug-resistant diseases. We must come together to collect all the data, put it together and study it to prevent these deaths," said Henk Jan Bekedam, Country Representative to India, World Health Organisation.
According to a survey conducted by the WHO in 2015 in India, 75 per cent of respondents suffer from the wrong notions that cold and flu can be treated with antibiotics and only 58 per cent know they should stop taking antibiotics only when they have finished the course.
ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said the Kolkata facility will be the hub where all research on antibiotic resistance will be carried out not only for the country but also for South Asia.
The report attributed the decline in what was considered to be one of the heaviest-drinking countries in the world to a series of alcohol-control measures implemented by the state, especially under then President Dmitri Medvedev, and a push towards healthy lifestyles.
According to the WHO, the drop in alcohol consumption was linked to a significant rise in life expectancy in the country.
"Alcohol consumption has long been recognised as one of the main driving factors of mortality in the Russian Federation, especially among men of working age," the report said, adding that from 2003 to now, both alcohol consumption and mortality rate decreased.
In 2018, life expectancy in Russia reached a historic peak, at 68 years for men and 78 years for women.
Alcohol-control measures introduced under then President Medvedev included advertising restrictions, increased taxes on alcohol and a ban on alcohol sales between certain hours.
The discovery shows significant progress towards teasing apart the genes associated with autism from those associated with intellectual disability and developmental delay, conditions which often overlap.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in 160 children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
ASDs begin in childhood and tend to persist into adolescence and adulthood. In most cases, the conditions are apparent during the first five years of life.
"This is a landmark study, both for its size and for the large international collaborative effort is required.
"With these identified genes we can begin to understand what brain changes underlie ASD and begin to consider novel treatment approaches," said Joseph D Buxbaum, Director of the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
For the study published in the journal Cell, an international team of researchers from more than 50 sites collected and analyzed more than 35,000 participant samples, including nearly 12,000 with ASD, the largest autism sequencing cohort to date.
Using an enhanced analytic framework to integrate both rare, inherited genetic mutations and those occurring spontaneously when the egg or sperm are formed, researchers identified the 102 genes associated with ASD risk.
Of those genes, 49 were also associated with other developmental delays.
The larger sample size of this study enabled the research team to increase the number of genes associated with ASD from 65 in 2015 to 102 today.
In addition to identifying subsets of the 102 ASD-associated genes, the researchers showed that ASD genes impact brain development or function and that both types of disruptions can result in autism.
"Through our genetic analyses, we discovered that it's not just one major class of cells implicated in autism, but rather that many disruptions in brain development and in neuronal function can lead to autism," said Buxbaum.
It's critically important that families of children with and without autism participate in genetic studies because genetic discoveries are the primary means to understanding the molecular, cellular, and systems-level underpinnings of autism.
"We now have specific, powerful tools that help us understand those underpinnings, and new drugs will be developed based on our newfound understanding of the molecular bases of autism," the researchers noted.
(IANS)
Addressing the 146th session of the WHO Executive Board meeting that kicked off here on Monday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China "take serious measures at the epicentre, at the source," which not only protected Chinese people but also prevented the spread of the virus to other countries, reported Xinhua news agency.
"Because of this strategy, if it weren't for China's efforts, the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher," he said.
Outside China, he said there are 146 confirmed cases in 23 countries. "It's actually small, and it's coming only slow ... So it can be managed," Tedros said.
Tedros called on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent and said that the vital importance for all countries is to invest in preparedness, not panic.
WHO has made recommendations that there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade, and all countries must support countries with weaker health systems, as well as accelerate the development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
WHO also said that the world should combat the spread of rumours and misinformation, review preparedness plans, identify gaps and evaluate the resources needed to identify, isolate and care for cases, and prevent transmission.
The organisation called on all countries to share data, sequences, knowledge and experience with WHO and the world.
Tedros said WHO stands ready to provide advice to any country that is considering which measures to take, and called on all countries to work together in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation.
"We are all in this together, and we can only stop it together," Tedros said.
At the WHO executive board meeting, countries spoke highly of China's epidemic prevention work and its contribution to global public health. On behalf of African countries, the Tanzanian delegate expressed their sincere sympathy to the Chinese government and people, thanked the Chinese government for taking strong measures to control the outbreak quickly, and emphasized that thanks to China's great effort and sacrifice, Africa has so far no confirmed cases. He said that the next step for African countries is to continue to strengthen prevention measures, hopefully with the support from the WHO and China.
The German delegate appreciated for China having acted quickly against the epidemic, being open and transparent, sharing information in a timely manner and working closely with the WHO. The Swiss delegate said that China's prevention, control and treatment measures are exemplary and that it is willing to work with the Chinese people to win the fight against the outbreak.
Britain, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Singapore, Israel, Chile, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, Spain, Myanmar, Egypt, Norway, Indonesia, Canada, Denmark, Thailand, Sweden, Montenegro, and Bangladesh have all appreciated highly of the measures taken by the Chinese government, calling on the international community to strengthen cooperation and work together to overcome the disease.
(IANS)
In a media release issued on Tuesday, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted, "COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, and transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, while in the case of influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission."
The WHO is relying on data compiled on the virus to obtain a clearer picture of the situation as it unfolds. The WHO chief observed, "as we get more data, we are understanding this virus, and the disease it causes, more and more."
He added, "this virus is not SARS, it's not MERS, and it's not influenza. It is a unique virus with unique characteristics. Both COVID-19 and influenza cause respiratory disease and spread the same way, via small droplets of fluid from the nose and mouth of someone who is sick. However, there are some important differences between COVID-19 and influenza. Some countries are looking for cases of COVID-19 using surveillance systems for influenza and other respiratory diseases."
According to evidence collected from China, which WHO observed, 1 per cent of the reported COVID-19 cases do not display symptoms, and the majority of such cases tend to develop symptoms within two days.
A total of 90,893 cases of COVID-19 infections and 3110 deaths have been reported globally.
As per data released by the WHO, China reported 129 cases over the past 24 hours, which is the lowest number of cases since January 20. Outside China, 1848 cases were reported from 48 countries, of which, 80 percent of cases are from just three countries - the Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Italy.
Meanwhile, 12 new countries have reported their first cases, and there are now 21 countries with one case reported from each country. At least 122 countries have not reported any cases.
"There are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics to cure the disease. It can be contained - which is why we must do everything we can to contain it. That's why WHO recommends a comprehensive approach," said Ghebreyesus.
(IANS)
India sent about 15 tonnes of medical assistance comprising masks, gloves and other emergency medical equipment to the coronavirus-hit Wuhan city on February 26 by a military plane, which also evacuated 112 Indians and several foreign nationals.
In his media briefing here, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China is extending assistance and aid to local governments in 19 countries which have extended assistance to it when the coronavirus outbreak struck the country.
Asked about the conspicuous absence of India in the 19 countries listed by him, Geng said India and China have an "unimpeded channel of exchanges and the exchange is close."
"After the outbreak of COVID-19, China and India have been in communication and there is a cooperation between the two. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent a letter of sympathies with the Chinese side and the Indian foreign minister also spoke with the Chinese side over phone," he said.
"We have received assistance from the Indian side and we applaud that. We have a mechanism of exchanges and China has been notifying the information to India in a timely manner," he said.
"We have also been providing assistance and necessary convenience to the Indians in China. We have been protecting their health and safety," he said.
"As the pandemic spreads, we have also noted the situation in India. China and India are the only two countries with a population of over one billion. The virus is a challenge to all and we would like to share our experience with the Indian side and further provide necessary assistance to the Indian side," he said.
Geng also pointed out India was part of a video conference conducted by the Chinese officials to share their COVID-19 experience with Eurasia and South Asian countries recently.
South Asian countries including India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh participated in it, he said.
Officials included those from health authorities, diplomatic services, national defence, customs civil aviation etc. The World Health Organisation delegates in the relevant countries also participated in the video conference, he said.
The conference was a platform to share China's experience in epidemic prevention, diagnosis and control, treatment, supply guarantee, Geng said, adding that Chinese officials answered around 80 questions.
Read: COVID-19 Positive Cases In India Rise To 415, Govt Warns Of Legal Action Against Lockdown Violators
Geng said the conference lasted for four hours and around 2,000 representatives participated in it. The participants think it is timely and necessary to learn from China's experience, he said.
China, which is battling the coronavirus since January 23, has reported no new domestic cases of the COVID-19 on Sunday but reported nine deaths taking the death toll to 3,270 as it ramped up measures to strictly quarantine people coming from abroad.
The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland has reached 81,093 by the end of Sunday. It included 3,270 people who died of the disease, 5,120 patients still undergoing treatment, 72,703 patients discharged after recovery, according to China's National Health Commission.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced a global trial to find out if any medication can actually treat infections of the novel coronavirus. WHO has made the announcement amid lab tests and examination of 70 drugs and experimental cocktails to find the most promising COVID-19 drugs.
The trial, which could include many thousands of patients in dozens of countries, has been designed to be as simple as possible so that even hospitals overwhelmed by an onslaught of COVID-19 patients can participate, according to the prestigious journal Science.
Scientists have suggested dozens of existing compounds for testing but WHO is focusing on what it says are the four most promising therapies.
These are "an experimental antiviral compound called remdesivir; the malaria medications chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine; a combination of two HIV drugs, lopinavir, and ritonavir; and that same combination plus interferon-beta, an immune system messenger that can help cripple viruses," said the article in the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Originally developed by Gilead to combat Ebola and related viruses, remdesivir shuts down viral replication by inhibiting a key viral enzyme, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.
The first COVID-19 patient diagnosed in the US -- a young man in Snohomish County, Washington state -- was given remdesivir when his condition worsened and he improved the next day, according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
A Californian patient who received remdesivir recovered as well.
When it comes to Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, the "WHO scientific panel designing SOLIDARITY had originally decided to leave the duo out of the trial but had a change of heart at a meeting in Geneva on 13 March, because the drugs "received significant attention" in many countries."
The available data are thin and results from COVID-19 patients are murky.
Chinese researchers who report treating more than 100 patients with chloroquine touted its benefits in a letter in BioScience, but the data underlying the claim have not been published.
All in all, more than 20 COVID-19 studies in China used chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, WHO notes, but their results have been hard to come by.
"WHO is engaging with Chinese colleagues at the mission in Geneva and have received assurances of improved collaboration; however, no data has been shared regarding the chloroquine studies."
Researchers in France have published a study in which they treated 20 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine. They concluded that the drug significantly reduced viral load in nasal swabs. But it was not a randomized controlled trial and it didn't report clinical outcomes such as deaths.
"Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart," said the Science article.
Ritonavir/lopinavir combination drug, sold under the brand name Kaletra, was approved in the US in 2000 to treat HIV infections.
The first trial with COVD-19 was not encouraging, however. Doctors in Wuhan, China, gave 199 patients two pills of lopinavir/ritonavir twice a day plus standard care, or standard care alone.
There was no significant difference between the groups, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on March 15.
"But the authors caution that patients were very ill -- more than a fifth of them died -- and so the treatment may have been given too late to help."
Ritonavir/lopinavir+interferon beta is another option. A combination of the three drugs is now being tested in MERS patients in Saudi-Arabia in the first randomized controlled trial for that disease.
(With Agency Inputs)
Also Read: COVID-19 Treatment: ICMR Recommends Hydroxychloroquine For Patient Carers, Healthcare Workers
Speaking at a daily media briefing in the Capital, Dr Raman Gangakhedkar who is the chief scientist of ICMR said that at least 70 groups of scientists across the world have been working towards a novel coronavirus vaccine and five groups have come into human trial phase -- with ChAdOx1 leading the race.
On Friday, scientists at the University of Oxford promised a super-fast vaccine during a virtual press conference, saying it would be available by September. According to lead researcher Professor Sarah Gilbert, their ChAdOx1 vaccine can work against the virus called SARS-CoV-2.
The Oxford vaccine group which was among the first to enter the COVID-19 vaccine race also promised one million doses of the vaccine by September.
ICMR informed that as many as 17 groups are working on COVID19 vaccine development of which 5 groups have passed animal study phase and are currently studying effect of drugs in humans. The group of researchers working on ChAdOx1 is one of these 5 groups. ICMR will monitor the progress and take this up based on results of the study being done by the group.
Later in the day, the Ministry of Home and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at a press meet briefed media that a high-level taskForce has been formed to work on the frontiers of science related to drug testing & Vaccines. Its Co-chair members are NITI Aayog, and Principal Scientific Advisor to Govt
https://twitter.com/PIB_India/status/1251839046998880261?s=20
However, WHO's latest "Draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines (April 11 update), lists only three candidate vaccines in the present which are currently in human clinical evaluation, and ChAdOx1 candidate vaccine is yet to be officially included as the fourth one.
Read: Coronavirus Outbreak: 35 Companies In Race To Produce COVID19 Vaccine, Trials Begin
According to the WHO draft, from a total of 70 candidate vaccines in the race, three leading vaccines which are in human testing phase are from CanSino Biological Inc and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology; Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc; and Moderna Inc along with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US.
What probably separates ChAdOx1 - known as recombinant viral vector vaccine - from the rest is the time it promises to take in order to deliver mass quantities.
In India, the Pune-based Serum Institute of India has collaborated with New York-based Codagenix Inc to develop a vaccine against the deadly respiratory disease.
The irony is: WHO special envoy David Nabarro has warned that there is no guarantee that a coronavirus vaccine can be successfully developed in the coming months.
Nabarro who is one of the world's leading experts said that people have to live with the threat of coronavirus "for the foreseeable future" and adapt accordingly because there is no guarantee that a vaccine can be successfully developed.
In an interview with The Observer, the WHO special envoy said the public should not assume that a vaccine would definitely be developed soon and would have to adapt to the ongoing threat.
"You don't necessarily develop a vaccine that is safe and effective against every virus. Some viruses are very, very difficult when it comes to vaccine development - so for the foreseeable future, we are going to have to find ways to go about our lives with this virus as a constant threat," he was quoted as saying.
In late March, Professor Gilbert received 2.2 million pounds as funding from the UK government for vaccine development and trials.
Researchers enrolled over 500 healthy volunteers to test if their vaccine can prevent the novel coronavirus.
The vaccine is an adenovirus vaccine vector and was developed at Oxford's Jenner Institute. Adenoviral vectors are a very well-studied vaccine type, having been used safely in thousands of participants, from 1 week to 90 years of age, in vaccines targeting over 10 different diseases.
"The Oxford team had exceptional experience of a rapid vaccine response, such as to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. This is an even greater challenge. Vaccines are being designed from scratch and progressed at an unprecedented rate," said Professor Adrian Hill, Director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford.
According to experts, the COVID-19 vaccine is at least 12-18months away, so there is no need to jump on every occasion someone announces a new one.
(With Agency Inputs)
Also Read: No Evidence Suggests BCG Vaccine Can Protect Against COVID-19: WHO
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo revealed this on Wednesday while speaking to Fox News about why greater transparency from the Xi Jinping government was required.
"Even today, the Chinese government hasn't permitted American scientists to go into China, to go into not only the Wuhan lab but wherever it needs to go to learn about this virus, to learn about its origins," Pompeo told the news channel.
Reiterating that the Trump administration has information about it, he said, "Look, we know it began at onea, but we need to figure this out. There's an ongoing pandemic. We still don't have the transparency and openness we need in China."
Also Read: Trump Suspends Issuing Of New Green Cards For 60 Days
"It is the World Health Organization's (WHO) responsibility to achieve that transparency. They're not doing it. They need to be held accountable," Pompeo said adding, that it has been "great to see other countries around the world to begin to recognize the WHO failures as well."
The US secretary of state said the WHO needs structural changes including stepping down of its chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Or even more than that. It may be the case that the United States can never return to underwriting, having U.S. taxpayer dollars go to the WHO. We may need to behave even bolder change than that," he said.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that the US "had no choice" but to pour trillions of dollars into fighting the coronavirus pandemic, adding that "this was an attack... this wasn't the flu".
"This was an attack. This wasn't just... This wasn't the flu, by the way," The Hill news website quoted Trump as saying on Wednesday at a White House press briefing, despite comparing COVID-19 to seasonal influenza before the outbreak reached pandemic proportions.
"Nobody's ever seen anything like this," he added.
Trump's comments come as the House prepares to pass more than $300 billion in further coronavirus economic rescue and medical response funding and Democrats push for another massive stimulus bill.
Trump and Congress have already approved more than $2.2 trillion in economic relief to counter more than 22 million job losses caused by the pandemic and the efforts to slow it.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said on Wednesday that the US must be willing "to spend what it takes to win the war" despite concerns about the $24 trillion national debt, according to The Hill news report.
Also Read: Coronavirus Will Be With Us For A Long Time: WHO Chief
As of Thursday, the US has reported 842,376 confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, with 46,785 deaths, both figures are currently the highest in the world.
(IANS)
The mobile-friendly dashboard, named as PRACRITI - PRediction and Assessment of CoRona Infections and Transmission in India, gives a detailed state-wise and district-wise predictions of viral cases in the country.
Also Read: Indian Railways’ New ‘Dashboard’ Facility For Train Passengers
The projections are given for a three-week period, which is updated on a weekly basis. The researchers believe that such a platform will be highly useful for healthcare bodies, local and central authorities, to efficiently plan for different future scenarios and resource allocation.
A key parameter of interest on Covid-19 is the basic reproduction number R0 and its countrywide variability. R0 refers to the number of people to whom the disease spreads from a single infected person.
For instance, if an active Covid-19 patient infects two uninfected persons, the R0 is two. Hence, reduction of R0 is the key in controlling and mitigating Covid-19 in India.
PRACRITI provides the R0 values of each district and state in India based on the data available from sources such as the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and World Health Organisation (WHO).
Led by Professor N. M. Anoop Krishnan of IIT Delhi's Civil Engineering Department, in collaboration with Professor Hariprasad Kodamana, a team of volunteers from IIT Delhi, namely, Hargun Singh, Ravinder, Devansh Agrawal, Amreen Jan, Suresh, and Sourabh Singh have developed this dashboard.
Krishnan said: "Getting the district-wise R0 is crucial as this will enable authorities to know the exact rate of spread in India locally."
Kodamana, of the Chemical Engineering Department, said: "Three weeks ahead district-wise prediction of infections in India provided by PRACRITI can be of immense help for policymakers for planning strategic interventions for controlling Covid-19 spread in India."
Also Read: Odisha Govt Launches Covid-19 Helpdesk On WhatsApp
The model also accounts for the effect of different lockdown scenarios, such as the effect of locking down the district boundaries and implementing different levels of lockdown within a district.
These predictions can help the districts and states having higher R0 to take rigorous measures to control the spread of Covid-19, while for those with low R0 they need to sustain measures and remain very vigilant.
The predictions in the dashboard are based on a newly-developed mathematical model that divides the population into four classes i.e. susceptible, exposed, infected, and removed.
"Susceptible" refers to people who have not been exposed to the coronavirus, "exposed" refers to those who have been exposed to the virus froman infected person, "infected" refers to those who are actively infected with Covid-19, and "removed" refers to those who are no longer a carrier of the virus.
The distinguishing feature of the model developed by the IIT Delhi researchers is the inclusion of the effect of movement of population across district or state borders in the spread of Covid-19.
Based on the computed values of R0, the researchers developed a detailed district- wise model for India to predict the number of actively infected people in each district.
Further, to accommodate various effects due to administrative interventions, virulence of viral strain, change of weather patterns, the model will be updated on a weekly basis in an adaptive fashion to account these variations for accurate predictions.
(IANS)
She said the whole world has to be prepared for the ongoing transmission of infection for "many many months and for perhaps years to come".
Swaminathan said it is not just enough to develop and test the vaccine, but it is also crucial to manufacturing it, scale-up procurement and get health systems to vaccinate populations.
Speaking on the National Technology Day, Swaminathan said, "I would like to commend and congratulate the minister and colleagues for having contained so far the COVID pandemic in India and having kept both the number of cases and the number of deaths very low compared to other countries."
All participants, including Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, addressed the conference online.
"However, we know it is the marathon that we are running. It is not the sprint, and India and in fact the whole world has to be prepared for the ongoing transmission of infection for many many months and for perhaps years to come," she said.
According to the World Health Organisation, as on Monday, there have been 39,76,043 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,77,708 deaths.
In India, the death toll due to COVID-19 stands at 2,206. The number of cases is 67,152 in the country.
Swaminathan, who served as Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research, said there are many challenges in India in terms of over-population, over-crowding in many of the urban areas and poor access to healthcare facilities in some of the rural areas.
"This is the time, actually, for us to strengthen public health surveillance, primary health care delivery, and strengthening of the health workforce," she said.
On vaccine development, Swaminathan said many vaccine candidates are being developed in India, some in partnership with other groups and some on their own.
"India will play an important role in vaccine development. The world cannot have enough vaccines for everyone if India is not part of the process," she said.
It usually takes 10 years to develop a vaccine, but in the case of Ebola, it was done in five years.
"The aim is to get a (coronavirus) vaccine out in a year or so. Or even less if possible," she said, adding that the process of developing vaccine will need global collaboration like sharing of knowledge, resources, tools and pooling of ideas to perform clinical trials more effectively.
"I am very optimistic that some of these will be successful," she said.
She added that the most vulnerable people to whom the vaccines should be first administered must be identified. This includes frontline worker and people with co-morbidities.
Prioritization framework needs to be developed, she added.
(PTI)
On April 14, President Trump halted America's funding of up to USD 500 million annually to the World Health Organisation while a review is being done to assess its role in "severely mismanaging and covering up" the spread of the deadly coronavirus when it first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
In a four-page letter to WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom, Trump said, "It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organisation in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China."
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organisation. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste, he wrote in his letter, which he tweeted on Monday night.
That is why it is my duty, as President of the United States, to inform you that, if the WHO does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation, Trump said.
"I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organisation that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America's interests, he added.
In his letter dated May 18, Trump alleged that the WHO has failed to publicly call on China to allow for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, despite the recent endorsement for doing so by its own Emergency Committee.
On Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping dispelled the criticism of secrecy and cover-up, saying "all along, we have acted with openness, transparency and responsibility. We have provided information to WHO and relevant countries in a most timely fashion.
Trump has accused China of covering up, while Australia and the European Union have called for more transparency in China's COVID-19 control efforts including an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus.
The WHO's failure to do so has prompted its member states to adopt the "COVID-19 Response" Resolution at this year's World Health Assembly, which echoes the call by the US and so many others for an impartial, independent, and comprehensive review of how the WHO handled the crisis.
Last month, in response to President Trump's criticism, Ghebreyesus gave a strident defence of his agency's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and said that the COVID-19 pandemic should not be "politicised" as unity is the only option to defeat the disease.
The resolution also calls for an investigation into the origins of the virus, which is necessary for the world to understand how best to counter the disease, he wrote.
In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the WHO's first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicentre in southern China, he said.
She also did not hesitate to criticise China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak..., the president said.
Trump alleged that the WHO has repeatedly made claims about the coronavirus that were either grossly inaccurate or misleading.
On January 14, the WHO gratuitously reaffirmed China's now-debunked claim that the coronavirus could not be transmitted between humans, stating: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) identified in Wuhan, China." This assertion was in direct conflict with censored reports from Wuhan, he said.
On January 28, after meeting with President Xi in Beijing, you praised the Chinese government for its "transparency" with respect to the coronavirus, announcing that China had set a "new standard for outbreak control" and "bought the world time."
"Even after you belatedly declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, you failed to press China for the timely admittance of a WHO team of international medical experts, Trump charged.
As a result, this critical team did not arrive in China until two weeks later, on February 16. And even then, the team was not allowed to visit Wuhan until the final days of their visit, he said.
Trump alleged that as of February 3, China was strongly pressuring countries to lift or forestall travel restrictions.
This pressure campaign was bolstered by your incorrect statements on that day telling the world that the spread of the virus outside of China was "minimal and slow" and that "the chances of getting this going to anywhere outside China (were) very low," he said.
By the time you finally declared the virus a pandemic on March 11, it had killed more than 4,000 people and infected more than 100,000 people in at least 114 countries around the world, he said.
More than 300,000 people have died due to the coronavirus pandemic and over 4.8 million people infected around the world. The US is the worst-hit country with over 90,000 deaths and over 1.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
(PTI)
This all important Executive Board has 34 members who are technically qualified and represent their nations. All of the 34 are designated by their respective states in the World Health Assembly, which in this case was recently concluded where Harsh Vardhan made a long speech about India's response to COVID-19 and how Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown "leadership" benefiting not just India but the world.
In fact, the proposal to appoint India's nominee to the executive board was signed by the 194-nation World Health Assembly.
While it has not been a sudden decision since last year itself WHO's South-East Asia group had decided that India would be elected to the Executive Board for three years from 2020, the timing is extremely crucial.
None less than US President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently halt funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) if it fails to commit to "substantive improvements" within 30 days. Trump also accused WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of bias towards China and alleged that the "only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China," in a letter to Tedros, the director-general of the WHO.
The world health body was forced to give its nod for a coronavirus probe, aimed to investigate China's alleged role of hiding crucial details of COVID-19 from the world, after 61 countries had moved a resolution at the WHO's decision-making body asking for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation".
And now, with India taking the centre stage of its Executive Board, many see it as India's stature rising internationally at a time when China's alleged influence over the WHO has provoked much debate.
(IANS)
Dozens of researchers across the globe are racing against time to come out with a vaccine for coronavirus that has infected nearly five million people and killed over 3,30,000 globally.
"It is very important for states to coordinate if we want the COVID-19 vaccine and/or medicines to be produced and distributed equitably worldwide. India will have an important role to play as a producer of medicines and vaccines," French Ambassador Emmanuel Lenain told PTI in an interview.
India is a leading manufacturer of vaccines and generic drugs globally. Several research institutes in India are also working on separate programmes to find a vaccine for the coronavirus.
The French Ambassador's comments also came in the backdrop of efforts by a large number of countries as well as the 27-nation European Union to ensure equitable access to any vaccine or medicine for the treatment of coronavirus infection through their mass production under voluntary patenting.
The issue figured prominently at the recent two-day conference of the World Health Organisation where many countries pressed for making the vaccine available to all countries and not only to those who have deep pockets.
"France and India have supported the European resolution (at the WHO) for universal, timely and equitable access to all necessary products for countering the pandemic, and underscored the role of extensive immunisation against COVID-19 as a global public good," he said.
Since the coronavirus crisis broke out, India has been pitching for a coordinated global approach in containing the pandemic. India has already supplied 446 million Hydroxychloroquine tablets and 1.54 billion Paracetamol tablets to 133 countries, drawing praise from a number of global leaders.
Last week, India's Foreign Secretary Harsh VardhanShringla said the coronavirus pandemic has reaffirmed India's role as a "pharmacy of the world.
In the interview, Lenain also said that the coronavirus crisis has shown that France and India's push for multilateralism is the right option for the current century.
"None of the major issues that structure the future of the world like healthcare and environment can be dealt with in an isolated manner," he said.
"I am delighted that the reform of the WHO, which France encourages, has found favour in India. India and France have coordinated well and continue to do so. However, we can do much more together," he said.
The COVID-19 crisis has shown the importance of international cooperation on humanitarian issues and the two strategic partners have been working together under the G20 as well as in the WHO on finding ways to check the spread of the coronavirus, the ambassador said.
He also said that France is "very grateful" to India for allowing the export of certain critical drugs for treating patients in intensive care.
Asked whether there was a need for the global investigation to find the origin of the coronavirus, Lenain said, "Post-crisis, there will, of course, be a time for analysing the alert mechanism to see how it can be improved."
(PTI)
Read More Relevant Stories:
Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Enters Advanced Human Trials
Coronavirus vaccine: US Lab Finds SARS Antibody to neutralise COVID-19 virus
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference that for now, stopping Covid-19 outbreaks come down to the basics of public health and disease control, including testing, isolating and treating patients, and tracing and quarantining their contacts, Xinhua reported.
"For individuals, it's about keeping physical distance, wearing a mask, cleaning hands regularly and coughing safely away from others -- Do it all," he urged.
The WHO chief told reporters that most people in the world remain susceptible to the virus, even in areas that have experienced severe outbreaks.
In the past weeks, the WHO chief has repeatedly stressed that although the world has changed, the basic measures needed to suppress transmission and save lives have not -- find, isolate, test and care for cases, and trace and quarantine their contacts.
"Countries and communities that have followed this advice carefully and consistently have done well, either in preventing large-scale outbreaks -- like Cambodia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Thailand, Vietnam, and islands in the Pacific and Caribbean -- or in bringing large outbreaks under control, like Canada, China, Germany and South Korea," he had said.
On July 31, the WHO Emergency Committee on Covid-19 met and reviewed the current pandemic, and based on the advice of the Committee, Tedros announced that the Covid-19 outbreak still constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
(IANS)
Stories You May Like:
Mandatory BCG Vaccination Linked With Slower COVID-19 Growth
COVID-19 Updates: DCGI Nod To Serum Institute For Phase 2, 3 Clinical Trials Of Oxford Vaccine
Addressing a virtual press briefing from Geneva on Friday, the WHO chief said that the Spanish flu of 1918 had also taken two years to overcome, but current advances in technology could enable the world to halt the Covid-19 pandemic "in a shorter time", the BBC reported.
"Of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading," he said.
"But at the same time, we have also the technology to stop it, and the knowledge to stop it," he said, stressing the importance of "national unity, global solidarity".
During the briefing, Tedros also responded to a question about corruption linked to personal protective equipment (PPE), which he described as "criminal".
"Any type of corruption is unacceptable," he said.
"However, corruption related to PPE... for me it's actually murder. Because if health workers work without PPE, we're risking their lives. And that also risks the lives of the people they serve," the BBC quoted the Director-General as saying.
Tedros also said that the pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change, Xinhua news agency.
"Throughout history, outbreaks and pandemics have changed economies and societies, this one will be no different."
Noting that the global health criris "has given us a glimpse of our world as it could be: cleaner skies and rivers... Building back better means building back greener".
In May, WHO published its Manifesto for a Healthy Recovery from Covid-19, with six policy prescriptions for a healthy and green recovery -- protecting nature, investing in water and sanitation, promoting healthy food systems, transitioning to renewable energy, building liveable cities, and stopping subsidies on fossil fuels.
Since then, over 40 million health professionals from 90 countries have sent a letter to G20 leaders, calling for a healthy recovery from the pandemic.
The WHO chief reiterated that "Covid-19 is a once-in-a-century health crisis. But it also gives us a once-in-a-century opportunity to shape the world our children will inherit - the world we want".
As of Saturday, the overall number of global coronavirus cases stood at 22,864,873, while the fatalities rose to 797,787.
(IANS)
Also Read:
COVID-19: WHO Warns About Complacency Among Lower-Risk Groups
WHO In Contact With Russia On World’s First COVID-19 Vaccine