India Narrative

A team of Indian scientists has developed a new technology platform for fluorometric detection of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) that is more reliable than the existing techniques, according to information provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.  The technology platform detects viruses by measuring the fluorescent light that is emitted and can also be used to detect other DNA/RNA pathogens such as HIV, influenza, HCV, Zika, Ebola, bacteria, and other mutating pathogens. Scientists from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, an autonomous institute of the government, along with scientists from IISc (India Institute of Science), have demonstrated a noncanonical nucleic acid-based G-quadruplex (GQ) topology targeted reliable conformational polymorphism (GQ-RCP) platform to diagnose Covid-19 clinical samples. This work has been published recently in the journal ‘ACS Sensors’ and the team has also filed a patent for the novel technology. Read More  

  In the 'Revised Comprehensive Guidelines for Management of COVID-19 in Children and Adolescents (below 18 years)', the health ministry has said that masks are not recommended for children aged five years and below. Those aged 6-11 years may wear it depending on the ability of the child to use a mask safely and appropriately under direct supervision of parents, it said. Those aged 12 and above should wear a mask under the same conditions as adults, the ministry said. The guidelines were reviewed by a group of experts in view of the current surge that is mainly attributed to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is also a variant of concern. Which mask should you use? AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria has said on several occasions that N95 masks provide the best protection. There are the cloth masks, which are the least protective, owing to their larger pores and some offering only one layer of material for protection from particles of COVID-19. Then there are the readily

  The World Health Organization approved two new treatments for curing Covid-19 patients on Friday as Omicron cases continued to surge worldwide. WHO experts said arthritis drug baricitinib used with corticosteroids to treat severe or critical Covid patients led to better survival rates and reduced need for ventilators. Experts also recommended synthetic antibody treatment drug Sotrovimab for people with non-serious Covid at highest risk of hospitalization, such as the elderly, people with immunodeficiencies, or chronic diseases such as diabetes. Sotrovimab's benefits for people not at risk of hospitalization were deemed insignificant and the WHO said its effectiveness against new variants like Omicron was still uncertain. The recommendations have been published in British Medical Journal  BMJ. Only three other treatments for Covid-19 have received WHO approval, starting with corticosteroids for severely ill patients in September 2020. Read More

  The World Health Organization has warned that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is spreading at an unprecedented rate and urged countries to act WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists that the strain had been reported in 77 countries and had probably spread to most nations undetected "at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant". At the same time the WHO on Tuesday also gave reason for some optimism, saying Africa had recorded a massive rise in cases over the past week but the number of deaths were lower than the previous waves. However, it urged countries to act swiftly to rein in transmission and protect their health systems and warned against complacency. WHO expert Bruce Aylward emphasised against "jumping to a conclusion that this is a mild disease". "We could be setting ourselves up for a very dangerous situation," he added. Omicron, first identified by South Africa and reported to the WHO in late November, has over 30 spike

  Chief WHO scientist Soumya Swaminathan has cautioned against knee-jerk reactions to early studies that hinted the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may have reduced efficacy against the new variant. She pointed out that the studies done so far were small and that the reduction in the "neutralising activity" varied dramatically between different studies. five fold in some experiments to up to 40-fold in others. They also only looked at the neutralisation of antibodies, when "we know the immune system is much more complex than that," she said. "So I think it's premature to conclude that this reduction neutralising activity would result in a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness," she said. "We do not know that." The WHO experts stressed the importance of vaccination , highlighting that even if vaccines prove less effective against Omicron, as some data indicates, they are still expected to provide significant protection against severe disease.

  Existing vaccines will still protect people who contract the Omicron variant from severe Covid-19 cases, according to a top World Health Organization (WHO) official. "We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalisation, and there's no reason to expect that it wouldn't be so for Omicron,” Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director, told AFP news agency. His observation comes at a time when the first lab tests of the heavily mutated new variant in South Africa suggest it can partially evade the Pfizer vaccine. Researchers say there was a "very large drop" in how well the vaccine's antibodies neutralised the new strain. But Ryan said there was no sign Omicron would be better at evading vaccines than other variants. He also said that initial data suggested that the COVID-19 symptoms in the case of Omicron were less severe than the Delta and other strains. Scientists