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India Coronavirus Dispatch: Who in the country will be inoculated first?
Lessons from pandemic on tackling air pollution, doctors divided on plasma therapy, and why pet cats are vulnerable to the virus-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19
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The Centre has set up National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration, or NEGVAC, to come up with a plan of attack to identify priority groups across states.
As we inch closer to the vaccine roll-out, here's a look at how the authorities will tackle the challenge of laying out the order in which different groups of people get inoculated.
The Centre has set up National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration, or NEGVAC, to come up with a plan of attack to identify priority groups across states. NEGVAC will decide on the order in which the states get the vaccine, the number of doses, and which groups get it first within the states.
Based on the standard operating procedures released by the government, in the first phase, the vaccine will be administered to: People above 50 years of age, people above and below 50 years of age, suffering from co-morbidities, healthcare and frontline workers. Read more here
Lessons for our govt from the Covid-19 crisis on communicating about air pollution
What if our governments treated air pollution with the same urgency as we have with Covid-19, ask Sharon Mathew and Arunesh Karkun, research associates at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Here are some lessons or measures the government can draw from the way in which the pandemic has been handled.
First, information on air quality should be collected and made available across the country. Second, officials must communicate the risk associated with air pollution to the people in a that is consistent and comprehensive. The daily quantification of Covid-19 cases across various websites and applications maintained a sense of urgency. Third, in addition to standardising the way we communicate air-quality information, the government must also make it easy to access. Today, AQI values and their advisories are available only to those who can access air-quality applications or websites, the writers say. Read more here
Fresh evidence shows why pet cats are vulnerable to coronavirus
Humans are not the only species vulnerable to the coronavirus. There have been instances of cats, both domestic and wild, contracting this virus. Fresh research sheds light on what makes cats vulnerable to this virus.
The latest research comes from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) headquartered in Barcelona — incidentally the same city where four zoo lions were found positive for coronavirus last week. The paper is published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The research adds to the findings of previous studies that felines are susceptible because their cellular structure facilitates coronavirus infection. Read more here
India's doctors remain divided on Covid-19 plasma therapy
Plasma therapy is a medical procedure where the blood of an individual who has recovered from a certain infection, such as Covid-19, is used to establish antibodies in the target patient.
India's health authorities, like many around the world, have allowed the use of plasma to treat severely ill patients. But doctors and researchers remain divided over its efficacy. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country's apex body for medical research, recently warned against its indiscriminate use. Its own study found that the therapy was not associated with stopping patients from becoming severely ill or reducing fatalities. Several studies around the world have reported similar findings. But the ICMR stopped short of banning the therapy. Read more here
The many ways in which Covid-19 can damage your heart
Nearly a year since coronavirus broke out the first time, experts are still discovering the workings of the virus.
The Covid-19 can damage the heart both directly and indirectly, some experts said. The damage can lead to complications ranging from inflammation of the heart, injury to heart cells, heart rhythm disorders, heart attack, and muscle dysfunction that can lead to acute or protracted heart failure. Read more here
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