New Delhi: New Covid variants XBB.1.5, EG.5 and BA.2.86 have led to a resurgence in cases of Covid-19, particularly in the US, Europe and Asia.

In late August, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) first reported an increase in transmission of Covid in the countries, particularly among people aged 80 and over.

Again in September, the ECDC raised concern over the “noticeable increase in signals of SARS-CoV-2 transmission” in European countries, among people aged 65 and older.

The agency said the rise in cases deviates from previously very low levels, and as per data from 24 countries there has been a rise in 14-day case rate.

Hospitalisation and intensive care unit admission levels were stable, but a few countries reported a rise in death rates from Covid, especially among older people. In total, 135 deaths were reported by 18 countries.

“SARS-CoV-2 continues to acquire mutations that enable its circulation at unpredictable times throughout the year. Recent transmission increases have coincided with the emergence of Omicron sub-lineages, particularly the XBB.1.5-like variants,” the ECDC said in its latest epidemiological report.

“While global case detections of BA.2.86 are limited, low-level community transmission is suspected in multiple countries. BA.2.86 is highly divergent from currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 strains, raising concerns of increased re-infections if it outcompetes existing variants,” it added.

Particularly affected is the UK, which is seeing a significant rise in Covid cases owing to both BA.2.86 and EG.5.

A recent update by the UK Health Security Agency (HSA), showed that of the new 34 cases of BA.2.86, 28 were reported from a single elderly care home in Norfolk — an early indicator that the variant may be sufficiently transmissible to have impact in close contact settings.

In the recent weeks, there have been four studies from the US, China and Sweden that claim that BA.2.86 is not severe.  These confirmed that the subvariant is less contagious as well as immune evasive and also less transmissible than XBB and EG variants.

“The news is better than I was expecting, and makes me more encouraged that the new upcoming vaccine will have a real benefit against the current dominant variant (EG.5) as well as BA.2.86,” Dr. Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 response coordinator, in a post on X.

“One possible scenario is BA.2.86 is less transmissible than current variants, and so never spreads widely,” evolutionary biologist Dr. Jesse Bloom, from the Fred Hutch Cancer Centre in the US was quoted as saying to The New York Times.

“However, there is also a chance that the variant will spread widely — and we will just have to wait for more data to know.”

Meanwhile in Asia, Japan and South Korea have also confirmed the presence of BA.2.86. Some have also found it to be wastewater samples.

Earlier in August, Singapore’s health ministry said about 18 per cent of Covid-19 community cases in the country were infected with Eris.

Several countries, including the UK, France, Singapore plan to launch vaccinations, as the US, to tackle the new variants.

The new Covid vaccines target the XBB.1.5 variant, which was dominant when vaccine makers began to formulate and test a new version.

US drug maker Moderna said that its updated Covid-19 vaccine contains spike proteins for the XBB.1.5 sublineage of SARS-CoV-2 to help prevent the disease in individuals 6 months of age and older.

IANS

New York: Covid-19 viral variants can evolve about three times faster in deer than in humans, according to a study that documented at least 30 Covid infections in white-tailed deer in the US that were introduced by humans.

The study, published in the Nature Communications, showed that white-tailed deer across Ohio, US, have increasingly been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

Scientists collected 1,522 nasal swabs from free-ranging deer in 83 of the state’s 88 counties between November 2021 and March 2022.

More than 10 per cent of the samples were positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and at least one positive case was found in 59 per cent of the counties in which testing took place.

“We generally talk about interspecies transmission as a rare event, but this wasn’t a huge sampling, and we’re able to document 30 spillovers. It seems to be moving between people and animals quite easily,” said Andrew Bowman, associate professor of veterinary preventive medicine at The Ohio State University.

“And the evidence is growing that humans can get it from deer — which isn’t radically surprising. It’s probably not a one-way pipeline,” he added. However, no substantial outbreaks of deer-origin strains have occurred in humans.

How the virus is transmitted from humans to white-tailed deer remains a mystery. Yet the combined findings suggest that the white-tailed deer species is a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 that enables continuing mutation, and that the virus’ circulation in deer could lead to its spread to other wildlife and livestock.

Beyond the detection of active infections, researchers also found through blood samples containing antibodies — indicating previous exposure to the virus — that an estimated 23.5 per cent of deer in Ohio had been infected at one time or another.

The 80 whole-genome sequences obtained from the collected samples represented groups of viral variants: the highly contagious delta variant and alpha.

The analysis revealed that the genetic composition of delta variants in deer matched dominant lineages found in humans at the time, pointing to the spillover events, and that deer-to-deer transmission followed in clusters, some spanning multiple counties.

The study also suggested that Covid-19 vaccination is likely to help protect people against severe disease in the event of a spillover back to humans. An analysis of the effects of deer variants on Siberian hamsters, an animal model for SARS-CoV-2 studies, showed that vaccinated hamsters did not get as sick from infection as unvaccinated animals.

Thus, the variants circulating in deer are expected to continue to change. An investigation of the mutations found in the samples provided evidence of more rapid evolution of both alpha and delta variants in deer compared to humans.

“Not only are deer getting infected with and maintaining SARS-CoV-2, but the rate of change is accelerated in deer –potentially away from what has infected humans,” Bowman said.

IANS

New Delhi: India has recorded 24 new coronavirus infections, the lowest since January 2020 when the first case of the virus was reported in Kerala, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Monday.

The count of active cases was 1,431 while the death toll was recorded as 5,31,913, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The Covid case tally has been recorded at 4.49 crore (4,49,94,599).

The national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.81 per cent, according to the health ministry website.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,44,61,255 and the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 per cent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PTI

New Delhi: India has recorded a single-day rise of 56 new COVID-19 infections and the count of active cases now stands at 1,453, according to Union Health Ministry data updated Wednesday.

According to the data updated at 8am, the death toll due to the disease has increased to 5,31,910 with two fatalities being recorded — one in Maharashtra and another reconciled by Kerala.

The tally of coronavirus cases now stands at 4.49 crore (4,49,94,407).

The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.81 percent, according to the health ministry website.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 4,44,61,044, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore vaccine doses have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.

PTI

New Delhi: An overactive inflammatory response could be at the root of many Long COVID or Post-Covid cases, according to new research.

A set of molecules associated with inflammation was found in the blood proteins of only a subset of patients with long COVID and not those recovered from the disease, said scientists from the Allen Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Washington, US, in the research.

Out of 55 patients with long COVID, about two-thirds were found to have persistently high levels of certain signals of inflammation.

Also read– Scientists find increased clotting in heart attack patients with Covid-19

Further, looking at blood samples from 25 people who had had COVID but recovered, and from 25 volunteers who had never had COVID to their knowledge, the scientists found that those without long COVID did not show the same signs of inflammation in their blood.

The researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

“There’s an obvious implication to these findings. Certain kinds of anti-inflammatory drugs might alleviate symptoms for some Post-COVID patients.

“But physicians need a way of telling which Post-COVID patients might benefit from which treatment – a form of precision medicine for a disease that so far remains maddeningly mysterious,” said Troy Torgerson, Director of Experimental Immunology at the Allen Institute.

“The big question was, can we define which Post-COVID patients have persistent inflammation versus those that don’t?” said Torgerson.

Specifically, the blood markers uncovered in this subset of patients with “inflammatory long COVID”, pointed to a flavour of inflammation similar to that seen in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, the scientists said.

While this kind of inflammation can be treated with an existing class of drugs called JAK inhibitors in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, these drugs have not yet been tested for Post-COVID.

The scientists said they also hope to narrow down their molecular signature of “inflammatory Post-COVID” to a few markers that could be used in the clinic to sort this subset of Post-COVID patients out from the rest.

The patient volunteers are part of a larger, ongoing study based at Fred Hutch, the Seattle COVID Cohort Study, launched in the spring of 2020 and originally designed to follow immune responses over time in patients with mild or moderate COVID.

Tracing immune responses in 18 COVID patients at that time, the scientists found a handful whose symptoms persisted, early examples of what would eventually be termed Post-COVID.

The scientists saw that certain immune responses, namely inflammation, were consistently high in these few patients with Post-COVID.

In those who got sick and then recovered fully, inflammation levels went up as their bodies fought off the illness, and then went back down as they got better. In those with Post-COVID, the levels never went back down.

The team, thus, decided to expand their study to look at more patients with long COVID or Post-Covid, focusing on a panel of 1500 proteins circulating in the blood.

These assays revealed different molecular “buckets” of Post-COVID, namely inflammatory and non-inflammatory long COVID.

Understanding the molecular roots of the disease, or subsets of the disease, will help guide clinical trial design and ultimately treatment decisions, the scientists said.

PTI

New Delhi: India has recorded 202 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases have decreased to 3,343 from 3,502, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Sunday.

The death toll has increased to 5,31,880 with two deaths, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The Covid case tally was recorded at 4.49 crore (4,49,91,582).

The active cases now comprise 0.01 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.81 percent, according to the health ministry website.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,44, 56,359 and the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PTI

Washington: About 10 per cent of people appear to suffer long COVID after an omicron infection, a lower estimate than earlier in the pandemic, according to a study of nearly 10,000 Americans that aims to help unravel the mysterious condition.

Early findings from the National Institutes of Health’s study highlight a dozen symptoms that most distinguish long COVID, the catchall term for the sometimes debilitating health problems that can last for months or years after even a mild case of COVID-19.

Millions worldwide have had long COVID, with dozens of widely varying symptoms including fatigue and brain fog. Scientists still don’t know what causes it, why it only strikes some people, how to treat it -– or even how to best diagnose it. Better defining the condition is key for research to get those answers.

“Sometimes I hear people say, ‘Oh, everybody’s a little tired,'” said Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Langone Health, one of the study authors. “No, there’s something different about people who have long COVID and that’s important to know.”

The new research, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, includes more than 8,600 adults who had COVID-19 at different points in the pandemic, comparing them to another 1,100 who hadn’t been infected.

By some estimates, roughly 1 in 3 of COVID-19 patients have experienced long COVID. That’s similar to NIH study participants who reported getting sick before the omicron variant began spreading in the US in December 2021. That’s also when the study opened, and researchers noted that people who already had long COVID symptoms might have been more likely to enroll.

But about 2,230 patients had their first coronavirus infection after the study started, allowing them to report symptoms in real time -– and only about 10 per cent experienced long-term symptoms after six months.

Prior research has suggested the risk of long COVID has dropped since omicron appeared; its descendants still are spreading.

The bigger question is how to identify and help those who already have long COVID.

The new study zeroed in on a dozen symptoms that may help define long COVID: fatigue; brain fog; dizziness; gastrointestinal symptoms; heart palpitations; sexual problems; loss of smell or taste; thirst; chronic cough; chest pain; worsening symptoms after activity and abnormal movements.

The researchers assigned scores to the symptoms, seeking to establish a threshold that eventually could help ensure similar patients are enrolled in studies of possible long COVID treatments, as part of the NIH study or elsewhere, for apples-to-apples comparison.

Horwitz stressed that doctors shouldn’t use that list to diagnose someone with long COVID — it’s a potential research tool only. Patients may have one of those symptoms, or many -– or other symptoms not on the list — and still be suffering long-term consequences of the coronavirus.

Everyone’s doing studies of long COVID yet “we don’t even know what that means,” Horwitz said.

AP

New Delhi: Researchers have discovered that heart attack patients who suffered from Covid-19 had a significant amount of clotting in their arteries both before and after intervention.

Importantly, clots were seen in multiple arteries in close to 30 per cent of patients, a phenomenon observed in less than five per cent of patients with heart attacks who do not have Covid-19, according to the analysis by The North American COVID-19 STEMI (NACMI).

ST-elevated myocardial infarction or STEMI type of heart attack is caused by the sudden, total blockage of a coronary artery.

Previous NACMI research has shown that mortality jumps to 20 per cent to 25 per cent in patients who present with Covid-19 and a heart attack.

“Covid-19 is a pro-inflammatory, clot-forming disease and we now see its effect in the coronary arteries,” said Payam Dehghani, Co-Director of Prairie Vascular Research Inc and Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

“These new insights point to the need for clinicians to be meticulous with blood thinning strategies, early interventions and patient follow-up,” Dehghani added.

For the study, angiograms of 234 patients from 17 sites (12 US, 5 Canada) were analysed.

Researchers note that further investigation is needed to better understand the impact of Covid-19 and heart attacks related vaccination as well as long-term outcomes.

The findings were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2023 Scientific Sessions.

IANS

New Delhi: India has recorded 756 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases have dipped to 8,115 from 8,675, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Sunday.

The death toll has increased to 5,31,832 with eight deaths which include two deaths reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The Covid case tally was recorded at 4.49 crore (4,49,86,461).

The active cases now comprise 0.02 percent of the total infections and the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.80 percent, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,44,46,514 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PTI

New Delhi: India has logged 1,272 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases have dipped to 15,515, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Sunday.

The death toll has increased to 5,31,770 with three deaths. While two deaths were reported from Punjab, one was from West Bengal, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The Covid case tally was recorded at 4.49 crore (4,49,80,674)

The active cases now comprise 0.03 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.78 percent, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,44,33,389 and the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 per cent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PTI

London: The protection offered by Covid-19 vaccination declines more rapidly in people with severe obesity than in those with normal weight, scientists have found.

People with obesity were more likely to be hospitalised, require ventilators and to die from Covid, but vaccines proved effective for them.

But, the study, led by a team from the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, suggested that people with obesity are likely to need more frequent booster doses to maintain their immunity.

However, even the booster antibodies likely decrease in 15 weeks time, revealed the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine.

A team from the University of Edinburgh looked at real-time data tracking the health of 3.5 million people. They looked at hospitalisation and mortality from Covid in adults who received two doses of Covid-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca).

They found that people with severe obesity (a body mass index greater than 40 kg/m2) had a 76 per cent higher risk of severe Covid-19 outcomes, compared to those with a normal BMI.

A modest increase in risk was also seen in people with obesity (30-39.9kg/m2), and those who were underweight.

Break-through infections after the second vaccine dose also led to hospitalisation and death sooner (from 10 weeks) among people with severe obesity, and among people with obesity (after 15 weeks), than among individuals with normal weight (after 20 weeks).

The team from Cambridge studied people with severe obesity, and compared the number and function of immune cells in their blood to those of people of normal weight.

The researchers found that six months after a second vaccine dose, people with severe obesity had similar levels of antibodies to the Covid virus as those with a normal weight.

But the ability of those antibodies to work efficiently to fight against the virus (known as aneutralisation capacity’) was reduced in people with obesity.

About 55 per cent of individuals with severe obesity were found to have unquantifiable or undetectable ‘neutralising capacity’ compared to 12 per cent of people with normal BMI.

“This study further emphasises that obesity alters the vaccine response and also impacts on the risk of infection,” said Dr Agatha van der Klaauw from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and first author of the paper.

“We urgently need to understand how to restore immune function and minimise these health risks.”

The antibodies in people with severe obesity were less effective potentially because the antibodies were not able to bind to the virus with the same strength.

When given a third (booster) dose of a Covid vaccine, the ability of the antibodies to neutralise the virus was restored in both the normal weight and severely obese groups.

But the researchers found that immunity again declined more rapidly in people with severe obesity, putting them at greater risk of infection with time. 

IANS

London: People with post-viral fatigue after suffering from Covid-19 can benefit from cognitive behavioural therapy, resulting in less fatigue and concentration problems, suggests a study.

After a Covid infection, a substantial number of patients report persisting symptoms. This is often known as long-Covid or Post-Covid Syndrome and the most common symptom is severe and debilitating fatigue.

The study, led by a team from University Medical Center (UMC) Amsterdam and Radboud in the Netherlands found that after behavioural therapy, Covid patients not only had less symptoms but also functioned better both physically and socially.

The improvements persisted even after six months, said lead researcher, Hans Knoop, Professor of Medical Psychology at Amsterdam UMC.

The findings are published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

In the study, patients who received cognitive behavioural therapy were compared with patients who received care as usual.

Normal care often consisted of supervision by their general practitioner or specialist, physiotherapy and/or occupational therapy.

Cognitive behavioural therapy for patients with persistent fatigue after Covid-19 focused on reducing fatigue by dealing with the symptoms differently.

“Together with patients, we looked, for example, at how they can improve their sleep-wake rhythm. We also helped them become more active again with small, safe steps. For example, by going for short walks,” Knoop said.

Cognitive behavioural therapy showed clear results for these patients. Most participants experienced significantly less fatigue and improved concentration after treatment.

They also made significant progress socially and physically. The results also proved to be stable over time. After six months, the differences, compared with those received regular care, were still present.

“Cognitive behavioural therapy also appears to be a safe treatment. Our research shows that the symptoms did not worsen, and new symptoms arose less often,” Knoop noted.

The researchers emphasise that the fact that behavioural therapy can help does not mean that the cause of the symptoms is psychological. Furthermore, not everyone benefits from behavioural therapy.

It is therefore very important to continue to search for other effective treatments and the physical causes of the post-Covid syndrome, the team said.

IANS

New York: Long Covid patients with persistent neurological symptoms are more likely to suffer immune system dysregulation, according to a small study.

The patients were also found having problems with their autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious functions of the body such as breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure.

Reported neurologic symptoms among long Covid range from headaches and loss of taste and smell to sleep disturbances and cognitive impairment with difficulties in concentration, language and executive function, and clinically significant depression and anxiety.

The study by researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers insight into biological mechanisms, and may help researchers better characterise the condition and explore possible therapeutic strategies, such as immunotherapy.

“Taken together, the findings add to growing evidence that widespread immunological and autonomic nervous system changes may contribute to long Covid,” said Avindra Nath, clinical director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH.

Twelve people with persistent neurological symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection were intensely studied at the NIH and were found to have differences in their immune cell profiles and autonomic dysfunction.

Researchers used an approach called deep phenotyping to closely examine the clinical and biological features of long Covid in 12 people who had long-lasting, disabling neurological symptoms after Covid-19.

Most participants had mild symptoms during their acute infection.

At the NIH Clinical Centre, participants underwent comprehensive testing, which included a clinical exam, questionnaires, advanced brain imaging, blood and cerebrospinal fluid tests, and autonomic function tests.

The results showed that people with Long Covid had lower levels of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells — immune cells involved in coordinating the immune system’s response to viruses — compared to healthy controls.

Researchers also found increases in the numbers of B cells and other types of immune cells, suggesting that immune dysregulation may play a role in mediating long Covid.

Consistent with recent studies, people with long Covid also had problems with their autonomic nervous system.

Autonomic testing showed abnormalities in control of vascular tone, heart rate, and blood pressure with a change in posture.

More research is needed to determine if these changes are related to fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and other lingering symptoms.

The findings are published in the journal Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation.

IANS

New Delhi: India Sunday logged 2,380 fresh COVID-19 infections, while the number of active cases came down to 27,212 from 30,041 the day before, according to Union health ministry data.

With the fresh cases, the COVID-19 tally increased to 4.49 crore (4,49,69,630). The death toll climbed to 5,31,659 with 15 fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

At 27,212, the active cases comprise 0.06 percent of the total infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.75 percent, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,44,10,738, while the case fatality rate stood at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PTI

Geneva: The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide.

WHO said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The U.N. Health agency says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.

“It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” he said, adding he wouldn’t hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should COVID-19 “put our world in peril.”

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19. He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the virus had shattered businesses and plunged millions into poverty.

“COVID has changed our world and it has changed us,” he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.

When the U.N. Health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis January 30, 2020, it hadn’t yet been named COVID-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.

More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

In the U.S., the public health emergency declaration made regarding COVID-19 is set to expire May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the pandemic response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and Britain, dropped many of their provisions against the pandemic last year.

When Tedros declared COVID-19 to be an emergency in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the virus’ potential to spread in countries with weak health systems he described as “ill-prepared.”

In fact, some of the countries that suffered the worst COVID-19 death tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a pandemic, including the U.S. And Britain. According to WHO data, the number of deaths reported in Africa account for just 3% of the global total.

WHO made its decision to lower its highest level of alert on Friday, after convening an expert group on Thursday. The U.N. Agency doesn’t “declare” pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the virus had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a pandemic was already underway.

WHO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the world’s response to acute health threats, but the organisation faltered repeatedly as the coronavirus unfolded. In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press showed top officials were frustrated at the country’s lack of cooperation.

WHO also recommended against members of the public wearing masks to protect against COVID-19 for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.

Numerous scientists also slammed WHO’s reluctance to acknowledge that COVID-19 was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticising the agency’s lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.

Tedros was a vociferous critic of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, warning that the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” by failing to share shots with poor countries.

Most recently, WHO has been struggling to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, a challenging scientific endeavour that has also become politically fraught.

After a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID-19 most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as “extremely unlikely.”

But the U.N. Agency backtracked the following year, saying “key pieces of data” were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that COVID-19 might have ties to a lab.

A panel commissioned by WHO to review its performance criticized China and other countries for not moving quicker to stop the virus and said the organization was constrained both by its limited finances and inability to compel countries to act.

AP

Washington: Covid-19 was the fourth leading cause of death among Americans in 2022, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

More than 3.2 million persons died in the US during January to December 2022.

Heart disease (699,659) remained the top reason for death, followed by cancer (607,790), unintentional injuries (218,064) — which includes drug overdoses and car accidents — and Covid (186,702).

However, the death rate in 2022 decreased by 5.3 per cent, from 879.7 per 100,000 persons in 2021 to 832.8.

While heart disease and cancer deaths increased in 2022 compared with 2021 (accounting for 695,547 and 605,213 deaths respectively), deaths associated with Covid decreased.

Covid-19 was the underlying cause for 5.7 per cent of all deaths in 2022, decreasing from 12 per cent (416,893 deaths) in 2021.

Overall, Covid-associated death rate among males (76.3) was higher compared with that among females (49.8).

It also decreased from 2021 to 2022 among groups more than 15 years of age, while the rate increased for all age groups under 15 years. However, the CDC has not given the reason behind this.

Rise in heart disease cases may be due to Covid, as several studies have pointed out the increased risk for cardiovascular diseases for at least a year after recovery.

“The death rate went down by a lot, but we also want to emphasise we’re not out of the woods here,” Dr Robert Anderson, the chief of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics, was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

“There are still a lot of people who died, and we’re still seeing deaths in 2023 as well,” Anderson added.

IANS

New Delhi: India has recorded 3,720 new COVID-19 infections and the count of active cases of the disease in the country stands at 40,177, according to Union Health Ministry data updated Wednesday.

The death toll due to the viral disease has increased to 5,31,584 with 20 more fatalities, including five reconciled by Kerala, being recorded, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The tally of Covid cases in the country now stands at 4.49 crore (4,49,56,716), according to the data.

Active cases now comprise 0.09 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.73 percent, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 4,43,84,955 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of vaccines have so far been administered in the country under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.

PTI

New Delhi: Researchers have identified a specific protein, occludin, inside the human body that plays a critical role in the spread of coronavirus from cell to cell after infection, which could help in the development of new antiviral drugs in the future.

The protein mediates the transmission of the virus between cells, the researchers from University of Missouri, US, said in their study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This basic, scientific research is very important to better understand the underlying mechanisms of disease progression inside the body’s cells so that the proper countermeasures can be identified and developed,” said Wenjun Ma, an associate professor at the university and lead author of the study.

The research team examined how the coronavirus spreads through cells by analysing cell samples.

They found that when the occludin protein in a single cell is damaged by the coronavirus, the virus is able to quickly replicate and spread to neighbouring cells throughout the body, making the infection worse and symptoms potentially more severe.

This knowledge would be helpful for developers of antiviral drugs by examining the potential impact the antiviral drugs have in strengthening the occludin protein against infection, Ma said.

“We learned that the virus may only start off by infecting a singular cell, but cells are incredibly complex, and when the occludin protein gets damaged, the virus quickly replicates and spreads to neighbouring cells.

“For example, if only one cell in the lungs is infected at first, the ability to breathe may not be significantly impacted.

“However, once the virus spreads to neighbouring cells throughout the lungs, it can lead to difficulty breathing and other respiratory problems,” said Ma.

In future, Ma plans to study if other viral infections also impact the occludin protein in an effort to better understand how viruses interact at the cellular level with the hosts they infect.

PTI

Washington: The Biden administration will end most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House has said.

Vaccine requirements for federal workers, federal contractors, and foreign air travellers to the US will end May 11. The government is also beginning the process of lifting shot requirements for Head Start educators, healthcare workers, and noncitizens at US land borders, the White House said on Monday.

The requirements are among the last vestiges of some of the more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccination as the deadly virus raged, and their end marks the latest display of how President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to treat COVID-19 as a routine, endemic illness.

“While I believe that these vaccine mandates had a tremendous beneficial impact, we are now at a point where we think that it makes a lot of sense to pull these requirements down,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Ashish Jha said.

Deeply polarising at the time and the subject of numerous legal challenges — many of which were successful — the vaccination requirements were imposed by Biden in successive waves in late 2022 as the nation’s vaccination rate plateaued even amid the emergence of new, more transmissible variants of COVID-19.

More than 100 million people at one time were covered by Biden’s sweeping mandates, which he announced on September 9, 2021, as the delta variant of the virus was sickening more people than at any time up to that point in the pandemic.

Biden had ruled out such requirements before taking office that January but came to embrace them to change the behaviour of what he viewed to be a stubborn slice of the public that refused to be inoculated, saying they jeopardized the lives of others and the nation’s economic recovery.

“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said at the time. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

Federal courts and Congress have already rolled back Biden’s vaccine requirements for large employers and military service members.

Mandates remain for many employees of the National Institutes of Health, Indian Health Service and Department of Veterans Affairs — which implemented their own requirements for healthcare staff and others independent of the White House — will remain while those agencies review their own requirements, the administration said.

Over 1.13 million people in the US have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began more than three years ago, including 1,052 people in the week ending April 26, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the lowest weekly death toll from the virus since March 2020.

“COVID continues to be a problem,” Jha said. “But our healthcare system or public health resources are far more able to respond to the threat that COVID poses to our country and do so in a way that does not cause problems with access to care for Americans.”

He added, “Some of these emergency powers are just not necessary in the same way anymore.”

More than 270 million people in the US, or just over 81 per cent of the population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.

For more than a year, US health officials have been eyeing a long-term response to COVID-19 that is more similar to the approach to influenza, with updated shots yearly targeted at the latest strains of the virus — particularly for the most vulnerable.

But fewer than 56 million people in the US, or 17 per cent of the population, have received a dose of the updated bivalent boosters that became available in September 2022 and provide better protection against the omicron variants that remain in circulation.

“We don’t have a national mandate for flu vaccines in the same way, and yet we see pretty good uptake of flu vaccines,” Jha said.

“The goal here really is to continue to encourage people to get vaccinated, but I don’t think mandates are going to be necessary for getting Americans vaccinated against COVID in the future.”

While federal mandates are ending, Jha predicted that some employers, especially medical facilities, may decide to maintain their COVID-19 vaccination requirements. He noted that the hospital where he practices has had a flu vaccine requirement for employees for 20 years.

Jha dismissed concerns that ending the international traveller vaccination requirement would increase the risk of a new variant from overseas entering the US.

Biden has already rolled back virus testing requirements for both American citizens and foreign travellers to the US.

Jha said the US was already protected by a traveller genomic surveillance programme, which, for instance, tests for different virus strains in aircraft wastewater.

“We think that we are much more able to identify if a new variant shows up in the United States and respond effectively,” he said. “And I think that’s what makes the need for a vaccine mandate for travellers less necessary right now.”

AP

New Delhi: India saw a single-day rise of 5,874 new coronavirus cases, while the active case count dropped to 49,015 according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Sunday.

The death toll from the pandemic has increased to 5,31,533 with 25 deaths, which includes nine reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 3.31 percent while the weekly positivity was pegged at 4.25 percent.

The COVID-19 tally was recorded at 4.49 crore (4,49,45,389)

The active cases now comprise 0.11 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.71 percent, according to the health ministry website.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease went up to 4,43,64,841 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.18 percent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.

PTI