Disinfectant that can act as green de-contaminant for Covid developed

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Disinfectant that can act as green de-contaminant for Covid developed

Researchers have developed a plasma-based disinfectant generated with the help of cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) that can act as a green de-contaminant for Covid-19.

The Covid pandemic had brought forth the urgent need for de-contaminants that can limit the spread of infectious diseases through contact. However, most de-contaminants consisted of chemicals that are hazardous to the environment.

This encouraged the researchers’ team to look for greener alternatives. They demonstrated that the plasma generated by cold atmospheric pressure (CAP) has the potential to deactivate the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which binds to the human ACE2 receptor for inducing viral infection and subsequent Covid-19.

Plasma, the fourth state of matter which makes up most of the universe, when produced in controlled conditions in the lab is termed Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAP). The scientists passed plasma forming gases such as Helium, Argon, and Air through a high voltage electric field, which led to the formation of a stable plasma with a mixture of ions, and electrons emitting a pink glow of CAP inside the reaction chamber.

The scientists’ team included Kamatchi Sankaranarayanan, Mojibur R. Khan, and H Bailung from the Life Sciences and Physical Sciences divisions from the Institute of the Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), an autonomous research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) at Guwahati, Assam.

This research was recently published in the international journal of the RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) Advances showed that “short-lived highly reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) generated in the plasma led to complete deactivation of the SARS-CoV-2. Spike protein occurs within two minutes of CAP treatment. The RT-PCR analysis has also established that CAP can deactivate the RNA of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

The researchers showed that the CAP, a plasma-based disinfection method is a better alternative to environmentally hazardous chemical-based decontamination methods. “The cold atmospheric plasma is environmentally safe since, during the entire decontamination process by plasma treatment, no chemical waste is produced,” the study said.

The lead authors Sankaranarayanan and Bailung said the disinfection method could further be extended for various bacterial or fungal infections.

The research was conducted at the Covid-19 testing and research facility of IASST, which according to director Ashis K. Mukherjee, has carried out more than 1.54 lakhs tests to date.

India sees sharp decline in Covid cases, records 1,247 fresh infections

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India sees sharp decline in Covid cases, records 1,247 fresh infections

India recorded a steep decline in Covid-19 cases as it recorded 1,247 infections in the past 24 hours, against 2,183 reported the previous day, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday.

In the same period, one Covid fatality was recorded, taking the death toll to 521,966.

Meanwhile, the active caseload has risen to 11,860 which is 0.03 percent of the country’s total positive cases.

A total of 928 patients have recovered in the same time span and the cumulative tally of recovered patients since the beginning of the pandemic is now at 4,25,11,701. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.76 percent.

Also in the same period, a total of 4,01,909 tests were conducted across the country. India has so far conducted over 83.25 crore cumulative tests.

The weekly positivity rate in the country currently stands at 0.34 percent. Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate has reported considerable decline at 0.31 percent.

On the vaccination front, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 186.72 crores as per provisional reports till 7 a.m. This has been achieved through 2,27,79,246 sessions.

Over 2.47 crore adolescents have been administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since the beginning of the vaccination drive for this age bracket.

More than 20.52 crore balance and unutilized Covid vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs.

Global Covid caseload tops 504.9 mn

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Global Covid caseload tops 504.9 mn

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 504.9 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 6.19 million and vaccinations to over 11.18 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Tuesday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 504,990,510 and 6,199,732 respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered increased to 11,181,442,274.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 80,686,315 and 988,898 respectively, according to the CSSE.

India accounts for the second-highest caseload at 43,044,280.

The other countries with over 10 million cases are Brazil (30,261,088) France (27,980,729), Germany (23,437,145), the UK (21,916,961), Russia (17,820,486), South Korea (16,471,940), Italy (15,730,676), Turkey (14,999,479), Spain (11,627,487) and Vietnam (10,475,819).

The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (662,271), India (521,965), Russia (366,209), Mexico (323,944), Peru (212,630), the UK (172,014), Italy (161,766), Indonesia (155,903), France (145,242), Iran (140,854), Colombia (139,751), Germany (132,953), Argentina (128,344), Poland (115,838), Spain (103,104) and South Africa (100,181).

Countries renewing efforts for wastewater analysis to detect Covid surge

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Countries renewing efforts for wastewater analysis to detect Covid surge

A slew of countries, including Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the US, and Canada, are increasingly turning towards analyzing sewage water, which plays an increasingly critical role in monitoring the transmission of the Covid virus and its variants within communities.

Monitoring of wastewater for the Covid virus began in late 2020 after several studies pointed out that sewer slime can accumulate SARS-CoV-2 RNA. It is because traces of SARS-CoV-2 can be isolated from what we flush down the toilet — and sometimes survive up to several days after leaving an infected person’s body.

According to New Zealand’s Institute of Environmental Science and Research, RNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus was detected at all but one of the 120 wastewater sites from the week to April 10, NZ Herald reported.

The data showed that early in the year, just about 10 percent of the sites reported quantifiable amounts of virus. By mid-February, it shot to more than a quarter, and around mid-March, it was present in about 90 percent of them.

The latest data shows how daily cases in the region have tumbled to around 14 percent of the peak — fewer than 100 daily cases per 100,000, the report said.

Health authorities in Victoria in Australia detected the BA.4 or BA.5 sub-variant of the Omicron strain of Covid in wastewater samples taken from the Tullamarine catchment, ABC News reported. Wastewater testing in March revealed that BA.2 had become the dominant strain in Victoria.

A report from the South African Medical Research Council revealed that the analysis of wastewater samples in South Africa shows an increased incidence of Covid-19 in three provinces – Gauteng, eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal and Bloemfontein in the Free State.

Samples from wastewater plants in Johannesburg and around Pretoria also show that Covid-19 fragments are increasingly common. The Omicron variant dominates all samples so far sequenced with the delta variant found in isolated samples, the report revealed.

“Wastewater is completely independent of whether you get tested or not – everybody poops,” Mark Servos, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, was quoted as saying to CTVNews.ca.

“Wastewater is really one of our only reliable tools to determine what’s going on in terms of community prevalence.”

As of April 2, the Canadian city of Waterloo’s weekly average for the number of N-gene copies (well-preserved in wastewater) per milliliter was about 415, representing a steady increase in Covid-19 concentration levels since mid-March.

A large driver of this growth has been the rapid spread of the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant within the province, Servos said.

“We’ve now seen that BA.2 is almost 100 percent in most of the wastewater [samples] that we’ve been studying,” Servos added.

Other provinces like Alberta and British Columbia are also seeing a rise in Covid in wastewater samples.

About a third of wastewater sampling sites across the US have shown an uptick in Covid-19 cases across the country, according to the latest data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

India records 975 fresh Covid cases

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India records 975 fresh Covid cases

India reported 975 fresh Covid cases in the past 24 hours, a marginal rise against 949 infections reported on previous day, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

In the same time span, four Covid-related fatalities occurred, pushing the death toll to 5,21,747.

The active caseload has risen to 11,366, which is 0.03 percent of the country’s total positive cases.

A total of 796 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours and the cumulative tally of recovered patients since the beginning of the pandemic is now at 4,25,07,834. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.76 percent.

Also in the same period, a total of 3,00,918 tests were conducted across the country. India has so far conducted over 83.14 crore cumulative tests.

The weekly positivity rate in the country currently stands at 0.26 percent, however, the daily positivity rate has been reported a rise to 0.32 percent.

On the vaccination front, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 186.38 crores as per provisional reports till 7 a.m. This has been achieved through 2,26,92,417 sessions.

Over 2.40 crore adolescents have been administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since the beginning of the vaccination drive for this age bracket.

More than 20.60 crore balance and unutilized Covid vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered.

Magic mushroom helps ‘open up’ brains of people with depression: Study

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Magic mushroom helps ‘open up’ brains of people with depression: Study

A psychedelic compound found in psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms, can help to “open up” depressed people’s brains, enabling brain regions to talk more freely to one another, finds a study.

Psilocybin is one of a number of psychedelics being explored as a potential therapy for psychiatric disorders. Several studies have trialed a synthesised form of the drug to treat patients with depression and anxiety, with promising results.

A team at Imperial College London’s Centre for Psychedelic Research believes to have untangled how psilocybin exerts its therapeutic effects on the brain.

The new results, taken from two combined studies including about 60 adults, reveal that people who responded to psilocybin-assisted therapy showed increased brain connectivity, not just during their treatment, but up to three weeks afterward.

This “opening up” effect was associated with self-reported improvements in their depression.

However, similar changes in brain connectivity were not seen in those treated with a conventional antidepressant (called escitalopram), suggesting the psychedelic works differently in treating depression.

According to the team, the findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, are a promising advance for psilocybin therapy, with the effects replicated across two studies.

They explain that patterns of brain activity in depression can become rigid and restricted, and that psilocybin could potentially help the brain to break out of this rut in a way that traditional therapies cannot.

“The effect seen with psilocybin is consistent across two studies, related to people getting better, and was not seen with a conventional antidepressant,” said Professor Robin Carhart-Harris, from the University of California, San Francisco.

“In previous studies, we had seen a similar effect in the brain when people were scanned whilst on a psychedelic, but here we’re seeing it weeks after treatment for depression, which suggests a carryover of the acute drug action,” Carhart-Harris, who was formerly Head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research.

The researchers added that while follow-up data is still being analyzed for participants, initial changes in brain activity one day following treatment were a good predictor of whether a person would still show improvement at six months.

However, they cautioned that patients with depression should not attempt to self-medicate with psilocybin, as taking magic mushrooms or psilocybin in the absence of safeguards may not have a positive outcome.

Global Covid caseload tops 502.8 mn

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Global Covid caseload tops 502.8 mn

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 502.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 6.19 million and vaccinations to over 11.15 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Friday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 502,847,462 and 6,193,239 respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 11,154,392,381.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 80,573,532 and 988,121 respectively, according to the CSSE.

India accounts for the second-highest caseload at 43,039,023.

The other countries with over 10 million cases are Brazil (30,234,024) France (27,637,292), Germany (23,339,311), the UK (21,916,961), Russia (17,778,928), Italy (15,533,012), South Korea (16,104,869), Turkey (14,983,158), Spain (11,627,487) and Vietnam (10,320,599).

The nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (662,043), India (521,737), Russia (365,285), Mexico (323,848), Peru (212,547), the UK (172,014), Italy (161,336), Indonesia (155,794), France (144,947), Iran (140,744), Colombia (139,738), Germany (132,900), Argentina (128,306), Poland (115,775), Spain (103,104) and South Africa (100,138).

NHA seeks technology providers to build national digital health network

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NHA seeks technology providers to build national digital health network

The National Health Authority (NHA) has extended an open invitation to all for sharing Expression of Interest (EoI) for developing innovative solutions that will help build a national digital health ecosystem for India.

NHA, the implementing agency for Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, said that this collaborative approach will not just help speed up the development but also will help in making digital public goods available to the public and/or private entities. The interested parties will provide these solutions as a service at no cost to the public.

“The ABDM endeavors to give impetus to open and interoperable standards in the digital health ecosystem. Such an undertaking will not only expedite Universal Health Coverage goals in India, but also have ripple effects on the global health ecosystem”, NHA CEO, R.S. Sharma said.

The NHA is giving an open call inviting all interested parties to contribute to the Unified Health Interface (UHI), Health Claims Protocol (HCP), and various other open-source digital public goods being created to expand the digital health ecosystem.

The ABDM has developed building blocks and interoperable APIs to offer a seamless digital healthcare experience for all stakeholders – health facilities, patients, and healthcare professionals. The key building blocks of ABDM are the ABHA, Healthcare Professionals Registry, Health Facility Registry, and Health Information Exchange & Consent Manager.

These building blocks are designed to enable the identification of participating entities (health care providers, patients, and health professionals) and enable an exchange of interoperable health data with patient consent. The digital ecosystem developed is now accessible to health facilities and health tech players for integration.

1,430 Covid patients discharged from hospitals on Chinese mainland

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1,430 Covid patients discharged from hospitals on Chinese mainland

A total of 1,430 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery on the Chinese mainland, the National Health Commission said in its Friday report.

This brought the mainland’s total number of Covid-19 patients discharged from hospitals after recovery to 145,352 as of Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

On Wednesday, 28,778 close contacts were released from medical observation on the mainland, the report showed.

Delhi school teacher, student test positive for Covid

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Delhi school teacher, student test positive for Covid

A Delhi school teacher and student at a private school tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, and both have been sent on leave, officials said.

As a precautionary measure, all classmates of the affected student have also been sent home.

The worrying news has come a day after Delhi recorded 299 new Covid cases on Wednesday, a rise of nearly 50 percent.

“There are reports of a child and a teacher testing positive for Covid. Other students in the class have been sent home. We are closely tracking the situation,” ruling AAP’s MLA Atishi said.

Several schools in Delhi and adjoining areas have reported Covid cases since the beginning of the new academic session. Around 22 students from four schools in Noida have tested positive for Covid infection in the last few days.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar Health Department on Monday issued an advisory to schools across Noida and Greater Noida, asking them to immediately inform it about any child with cough, cold, fever or any Covid-like symptoms for timely treatment.

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