Health & Food

After admitting that the world may have a COVID-19 vaccine within one year or even a few months earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday said that UK-based AstraZeneca is leading the vaccine race while US-based pharmaceutical major Moderna is not far behind. WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan stated that the AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine candidate is the most advanced vaccine...

New Delhi, Jun 24: Expanding the testing criterion for coronavirus, the Indian Council of Medical Research has said it should be made widely available to all symptomatic individuals across the country. "Since test, track and treat' is the only way to prevent spread of infection and save lives, it is imperative that testing should be made widely available to all symptomatic individuals in every...

The record levels of new daily COVID-19 cases are due to the fact that the pandemic is peaking in a number of big countries at the same time and reflect a change in the virus' global activity, the World Health Organisation said. At a media briefing on Monday, WHO's emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan said that the numbers are increasing because the epidemic is developing in a number of populous...

A team of scientists has produced first open source all-atom models of full-length COVID-19 Spike protein that facilitates viral entry into host cells – a discovery that can facilitate a faster vaccine and antiviral drug development. The group from Seoul National University in South Korea, University of Cambridge in the UK and Lehigh University in the US produced the first open-source all-atom...

Lower neighbourhood socioeconomic status and greater household crowding increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, warn researchers. "Our study shows that neighbourhood socioeconomic status and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection," said study lead author Alexander Melamed from Columbia University in the US. "This may...

The World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. Thursday saw the most cases in a single day reported to the WHO. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the day had seen 150,000 new cases with half of those coming from the Americas and large numbers also from the Middle East and South Asia, the BBC reported. He said the virus was still spreading...

At a time when the country is yet to recover from the shock of losing 20 Indian soldiers in a violent clash with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley, another shocker has come to light with news coming of a malware hitting the Indian Railways network and snooping its data for foreign countries, including train movements, sources in the intelligence agencies...

Washington, Jun 20: Pregnant and postpartum women are usually at a high risk of depression and anxiety - one in seven women struggle with symptoms in the perinatal period and the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating those struggles according to a recent study. The study was published in Frontiers in Global Women's Health, which found that the likelihood of maternal depression and anxiety has...

While coughing, fever and difficulty in breathing are common symptoms of COVID-19, a new case study has found that pink eye is also a reason to be tested for the disease. The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, determined that conjunctivitis and keratoconjunctivitis can also be primary symptoms of COVID-19. The researchers noted that in March, a 29-year-old woman arrived at...

Leading physicians are celebrating a small dose of good news that arrived Tuesday about dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid shown to be able to save lives among COVID-19 patients, but also cautioning against releasing study results by press release during a global health emergency, like in the case of the latest dexamethasone study by University of Oxford. "It will be great news if...