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Union Health ministry postpones NEET-PG exam by 6-8 weeks before SC hearing

NEET PG exam that was scheduled to be held on March 12 has been postponed by 6-8 weeks, the Union Health Ministry announced via a government circular. In an order issued on Thursday, the director of health services wrote, “I am directed to say that lot of representations were being received from medical doctors regarding request to delay NEET-PG-2022 examination date i.e. 12.03.22 as published in information bulletin by NBE since it is clashing with the NEET PG 2021 counselling. Also, many of the interns would not be able to participate in the PG Counselling 2022 by the month of May/2022.” “Keeping the above facts in view, the minister has taken the decision to postpone NEET PG 2022 by 6-8 weeks or suitably,” the order said. The Supreme Court was scheduled to listen to a plea on the postponement of the examination on Friday. The plea was filed on January 25. Six MBBS students approached the apex court as many requirements like mandatory internship etc weren’t fulfilled by many aspirants. Many internships got halted due to their Covid duty, they said. According to one among the NEET PG regulations, 30 beds of a hospital need to be assigned to at least one unit of students pursuing the PG course and now two students of two academic sessions will need to be accommodated within the same facility, the plea said. There was a delay in conducting the exams in 2021 which was due to the pandemic situation. Many MBBS graduated are yet to finish their internship, without completing which they’ll not be eligible for the entrance exam this year. The Supreme Court, on January 7, had paved the way for resuming the stalled NEET-PG 2021 counselling process based on the prevailing 27 per cent OBC and 10 per cent EWS reservations in the All India Quota seats, saying there’s an “urgent need” to start the admission process. Source: PTI

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Budget 2022: National Tele Mental Health Program to be Launched Amid Pandemic, Says FM Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget, said a national tele-mental health program will be launched for mental health counselling. IIT Bangalore will provide tech support for the programme. She also said an open platform for the National Digital Health Ecosystem will be rolled out “It will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity and universal access to health facilities,” she said. She said the government is focused on empowering the youths, women and the poor sections in the country, adding that the government’s next target is to create 60 lakh jobs. The programme will include 23 tele mental health centres of excellence with National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (Nimhans) being the nodal centre and technology support being provided by IIT Bangalore, she added. “We are in the midst of the Omicron wave, the speed of our vaccination campaign has helped greatly. I am confident that ‘Sabka Prayaas’, we’ll continue with strong growth,” the FM said in her initial part of the Budget speech. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting her fourth Budget that is aimed at maintaining the world’s fastest-growing economy tag for India. The budget comes days before the first phase of voting in Uttar Pradesh, which along with four other states is going to the polls to elect a new state government.  

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Breaking News Update: UK Reviewing Decisions To Make COVID Vaccine Jabs Mandatory for Healthcare Workers

Amidst rising COVID-19 cases and the discovery of new variants, Britain is reviewing its decision to make vaccine jabs mandatory for healthcare workers amidst tension of losing thousand of staff. In England, there are high tensions and concerns amongst hospitals and the government that because of making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory, they could lose tens of thousands of workers. The decision has met a lot of resistance from a significant group of some healthcare workers, with warnings that sacking those who did not comply could leave the NHS facing significant staff shortages, while a number of lawmakers in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party have also criticized the decision. The government also said on Monday that they have received the long-awaited report on the investigation into lockdown-breaching government parties. The Cabinet Office said senior civil servant Sue Gray “has provided an update on her investigations to the Prime Minister.” Johnson’s office has promised the report will be published “swiftly”. Source: Reuters and Associated Press  

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Union Health Minister Mandaviya To Hold Covid Review Meeting With Southern States, Uts Today

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will chair a high-level meeting today with the health ministers of southern states, Union territories to review the Covid-19 situation. He will also review public health measures taken in view of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. The Covid-19 review meet will be held virtually at 2.30pm. The state health ministers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands are expected to attend the meeting, reported ANI citing people familiar with the matter. Senior health officials will also attend the meeting. Mandaviya held a high-level Covid review meeting with nine northern states and UTs on Tuesday where he advised to share Covid testing and vaccination data in a timely manner. He asked the states witnessing a decline in Covid-19 testing to ramp it up through RTPCR. Advising the states and UTs to ensure efficient monitoring of those in-home isolation in line with the national guidelines, the minister said, “This will ensure that the vulnerable categories of active cases in home isolation get the required medical help in a timely manner.” He reminded them to keep a close watch on the emerging clusters and hotspots of Covid-19 and monitor the trend of hospitalisations and virus-related deaths. Mandaviya said that with our past experience, ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to Covid Appropriate Behaviour’ along with monitoring of cases remains crucial for Covid management. In order to expedite the implementation of activities under the ECRP-II package, he asked the “health ministers and the state authorities to plug the existing gaps by efficiently utilizing the amount sanctioned for various infra projects.” Source: ANI

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Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya to hold Covid-19 review meet with 9 states & UTs today

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will interact with the health ministers of nine states and Union territories (UTs) on Tuesday over the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) situation. The virtual interaction will take place at 10.30am, news agency ANI reported. The states and UTs which will take part in the virtual interaction are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh. In an earlier interaction with states and UTs, Mandaviya advised them to keep a tab on infrastructural matters regarding medical oxygen. He also asked them to establish teleconsultation hubs in every district and focus on widespread awareness regarding available infrastructure and healthcare services. Mandaviya has been holding such meetings to review the Covid-19 situation in various parts of the country. Some of these meetings were held with a particular group of states where the positivity rate and the spread of the infection were higher than other parts of the country. India has witnessed a surge in the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the past few weeks, especially after the emergence of the new Omicron variant. The highly-mutated strain is believed to be more resistant to vaccines. Meanwhile, India reported 3,06,064 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, nearly 28,000 less than the day before. The Union health ministry said that the positivity rate in the country has reached 20 per cent. The ministry also said that India’s active caseload stands at 22,49,335 and accounts for 5.69 per cent of the total cases. Source: ANI

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Healthcare May Receive Top Priority In Budget 2022, Says Assocham

Healthcare sector is likely to receive the highest priority in the upcoming Union Budget 2022-23 on account of continuing challenges posed by COVID-19 and the imperative need for scaling up public health infrastructure, an Assocham survey said on Thursday. The industry chamber noted that 47 per cent of the respondents in its survey pointed towards Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman according maximum attention to healthcare in the Budget. Besides, MSMEs, energy and infrastructure and technology were also on priority list as per the survey done among 400 respondents across 40 cities from different sectors, it stated. While the government’s proactive measures and the frontline workers’ tireless efforts have helped tide over the uncertain situation, the pandemic also brought forth certain gaps in the public healthcare system, Assocham said. Besides, nearly 40 per cent of the Assocham survey respondents said the Finance Minister should reduce the income tax among other measures to boost private demand and consumption. About 31 per cent said Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the poor households could be a demand driver at the bottom of the pyramid. Asked what policy-makers can do to scale up the pace of job creation, majority of the respondents wanted the government to focus on infrastructure and the housing sector. Further incentives to the companies to hire more people would also help, they said. Moreover, 28 per cent of the respondents stated that the Budget should include measures to encourage access to the latest technologies at a lower cost for MSMEs. Source: PTI

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Can Omicron turn out to be a blessing in disguise?

The ending of the year 2021 brought with it a new variant of COVID-19, which has posed a threat to the resumption of normalcy in the entire world. This new variant, Omicron is supposed to have originated from South Africa and then by gradually engulfing the entire Europe and the USA it had paved its way to India. Projections are that the numbers are going to rise over the next one month to a disproportionate amount with a rapid rise in daily cases. As of today, India has reported more than 3.47 lack new Covid cases, with a total active case count of more than 20 lack. About the Omicron strain: Scientists in South Africa reported the emergence of a new strain of the COVID-19 virus, called the B.1.1.529 on November 24th, 2021. Soon after the identification of this new variant by a team in Botswana headed by Dr Sikhulile Moyo, the World Health Organisation (WHO) did not hesitate to classify it as a Variant Of Concern (VOC). WHO has classified this variant of COVID-19 as a VOC because of the high number of mutations and its rate of transmission. Soon after this many other countries also identified this new variant affecting their population. The World Health Organisation (WHO) named it Omicron, following the tradition of using Greek nomenclature to denote the strains of the virus. The strains before the Omicron were named alpha, beta, gamma, Delta variant and so on. The new variant (Omicron) has been named while skipping the two letters in the Greek alphabet ‘Nu’ and ‘Xi’. What does the study say? According to the statistical data from South Africa, it has been assumed that the Omicron variant is 3 times more capable of infecting other people as compared to the delta variant. Moreover, the rate of increasing cases has exceeded that of the previous 3 waves of COVID-19 as well. In a few other studies, it has been found that the Omicron variant of Covid is more likely to infect the throat than the lungs, which scientists believe may explain why it appears to be more infectious but less deadly than other versions of the virus. There are five studies from across the world that confirm this observation that Omicron does not damage people’s lungs as much as the Delta and other previous variants of Covid. Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London said, “The result of all the mutations that make Omicron different from previous variants is that it may have altered its ability to infect different sorts of cells.” “In essence, it looks to be more able to infect the upper respiratory tract – cells in the throat. So, it would multiply in cells there more readily than in cells deep in the lung. This is really preliminary but the studies point in the same direction.” It implies the fact that if the virus replicates more in the throat, that makes it more transmissible, which would help to explain the rapid spread of Omicron. On the other hand, a virus that is good at infecting lung tissue will be potentially more dangerous but less transmissible. What are the Precautions for Omicron? To stay safe, you must follow all the WHO and Government-mandated safety measures for Omicron: Get vaccinated if you haven’t Maintain physical distancing Limit your travel outside and avoid crowding at all costs. Always wear a mask when stepping out or meeting any outsider Follow hand hygiene and respiratory etiquettes Do not ignore any signs of illness and consult your doctor immediately How can Omicron turn out to be a blessing in disguise? Scientists and researchers are increasingly convinced that the Omicron variant is acting like a natural vaccine for the people around the world. This is because most infected people have no or very mild symptoms, yet their bodies do produce full antibodies. Various countries are currently seeing record numbers of infections, including the USA, UK, Europe and most part of Asia, but hospital admissions only show a modest or even no serious increase. The high level of contagiousness, paired with very mild symptoms, may make Omicron a blessing in disguise, some Covid scientists argue. Professor Tony Blakely from the University of Melbourne in an Australia’s program said that Omicron may actually be a “blessing”, as initial reports suggest it is less severe than Delta despite being more infectious. Its apparent high transmissibility could lead it to displace Delta, he says. “This one should be more mild, but we don’t know exactly how much more mild it is, so that means that the hospitalisation rate should, but we are still learning, be less severe,” he explained. “It might be our ‘get out of this pandemic’ card,” he adds. However, Dr Blakely warned, that even if Omicron didn’t cause severe symptoms, that doesn’t stop another variant from doing so one day. “There will be more variants, and it is not guaranteed that the variant after Omicron and the next one will each be milder, it could become more severe. So, it’s a really interesting time to be an epidemiologist,” he said. Dr Namita Jaggi of Artemis Hospitals in India told various media channels that “pandemics have traditionally speaking petered out by having variants that are milder and less severe till they finally die out.” “So no, Omicron is not a cause of concern, rather we must optimistically hope that we are moving towards the end of the pandemic,” Jaggi said. Dr Vishal Sehgal, President of medical services at Portea Medical in India, told the Times of India that “Omicron acts as a natural vaccine and proves beneficial as it is less life-threatening.” Nicanor Austriaco, a Filipino-American molecular biologist, also believes Covid may slowly be killing itself off with the milder Omicron variant. During a Town Hall meeting, last week, he said that those infected with Omicron will have antibodies that “will protect them against Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha, and D614G” variants. Conclusion So, to conclude we can only wait and

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Maharashtra govt says ‘Molnupiravir’ must be used with caution to treat Covid-19 patients

The Maharashtra government on Monday issued a letter to the district, civic administrations and health departments in the state asking them to use oral anti-viral drug ‘Molnupiravir’ for treatment of symptomatic, adult COVID-19 patients with “abundant caution and in certain conditions”. Dr Pradeep Vyas, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), in the letter, requested district and civic authorities to use Molnupiravir with “abundant caution and in certain conditions and in full advised dose”. He said this drug has received emergency use authorization (from the Drug Controller General of India) and based on the opinion of some experts it has also been included in treatment protocol circulated on January 6, 2022, in the state subject to certain conditions. “Subsequently, certain state governments like Odisha have withdrawn this drug from the market. ICMR has also not recommended its use in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection (which causes COVID-19). Molnupiravir has not been included in the Standard Treatment Protocol released by the Government of India on January 17, 2022,” Dr Vyas said in the letter. Molnupiravir has been shown to reduce hospitalization in a clinical trial and thus has received emergency use authorization, not an FDA approval, the letter stated. Source: CNBC

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“Just 15% Of Hospital Beds Occupied”, Cases To Dip Today: Delhi Minister

Delhi is expected to record fewer than 25,000 Covid cases today – less than the nearly 30,000 reported yesterday – Health Minister Satyendra Jain said late last night. Mr Jain also told reporters only 15 per cent of available hospital beds were occupied and that admissions had slowed. “This is an indication that the wave has plateaued,” the Health Minister said, confirming that there are no plans to impose new curbs ahead of the weekend curfew that will kick in at 10 pm. “Last night, Delhi reported 28,867 new cases, 31 fatalities… but over 13,000 hospital beds are vacant, just over 15 per cent of beds are occupied. We are expecting the city will report around 25,000 new COVID-19 cases today,” Mr Jain was quoted by news agency PTI. “Hospital admissions in the city have become stagnant… which is a good sign. The positivity rate keeps on changing but the main factor is hospital admissions,” he added. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal this morning said, “There is no need to panic. Cases have risen but hospitalisation and deaths are low. We have made all preparations. There is no shortage of beds.” On Thursday the national capital reported a record 28,867 cases in 24 hours – the most in a day since the pandemic began in December 2019. Yesterday’s positivity rate – 29 per cent – was also the highest since May 3 last year, when the country was battling the second wave of infections. The number of Covid containment zones in the city saw a massive 17-fold increase this month, PTI reported, rising from 1,243 on January 1 to 20,878 on January 12. The PM’s message comes amid a massive spike in cases across the country triggered, in part, by the spread of the Omicron strain, which is much more transmissible than the Delta variant. “We have to stay alert, but we also need to be aware that there’s no need to panic. We have to be careful amid this festive season,” he said, underlining the need to also keep the economy running. This morning the country reported over 2.64 lakh new cases in 24 hours – a 6.7 per cent increase from the day before. The number of confirmed Omicron cases increased by 4.83 per cent to 5,753. Source: NDTV

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COVID-19 Omicron Updates India: Sharp Spike In Cases, Positivity Rate Up To 11.05%

According to Health Ministry statistics, India has noted a sharp surge in COVID-19 cases with active infections crossing 9.5 lakh on Wednesday. Based on data, the case positivity rate has risen from 1.1 per cent on December 30 to 11.05 per cent on January 12. India recorded 1,94,720 fresh COVID-19 cases and 442 deaths in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am on Wednesday. The active cases mounted to 9,55,319, the highest in 211 days, thereby taking the daily positivity rate to 11.05 per cent. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Wednesday indicated that India’s youth has displayed a sense of responsibility with over two crore children in the age group 15-18 years vaccinated against Covid-19 so far. The inoculation drive for children had started on January 3. The health ministry statistics indicate that Delhi, on Wednesday, had reported 27,561 new cases of COVID-19 and 40 deaths. The positivity rate in the capital also rose to 26.22 per cent. Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said that COVID cases have started coming down in Mumbai and “we will soon see the same trend” in the national capital. He added further, “Plateauing of hospital admissions is an indication that the wave may have peaked. We may see a decline in cases in two to three days.” As of Wednesday, Mumbai had reported 16,420 new COVID-19 cases — about 41 per cent more than Tuesday — at a test positivity rate of 24 per cent and seven deaths. Source: The Indian Express

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