Health

SHANGHAI: China reported more than 20,000 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the highest daily tally given since the start of the pandemic as millions in locked-down Shanghai began a new round of testing. The country’s “zero-Covid” strategy has come under immense strain as cases spike, with around 25 million residents of Shanghai — China’s largest city and economic engine room — …

JERUSALEM: Israel has launched a polio vaccination drive after its first case of the disease in more than three decades, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday, voicing concern turnout may be depressed by public fatigue over the Covid-19 pandemic. Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a viral disease of the brain and spinal cord that can cause irreversible paralysis. It affects mainly …

ISLAMABAD: No death due to Covid was reported in Pakistan during the past 24 hours, according to data shared by the National Institute of Health (NIH). According to the NIH database, a total of 23,265 tests were conducted during the same period, out of which 154 turned out to be positive, showing a positivity rate of 0.66 per cent. The …

Chinese vaccine developer CanSino Biologics (CanSinoBIO) said on Monday its potential COVID-19 vaccine using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology has been approved by China’s medical products regulator to enter clinical trials. Unlike other major countries, China is yet to approve any foreign-made mRNA vaccines such as that produced by U.S.-German duo Pfizer and BioNTech SE . With around 88% of …

It may seem strange after a pandemic that has killed millions and turned the world upside down, but viruses could save just as many lives. In a petri dish in a laboratory in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, a battle is going on between antibiotic resistant bacteria and “friendly” viruses. This small nation in the Caucasus has pioneered research on a …

Two gold-standard trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday help settle questions about two controversial therapies touted by many early in the pandemic with decidedly mixed results – failure for the antiparasite drug ivermectin and success for antibody-rich blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors. In Brazil, 3,515 patients with symptoms of COVID-19 for a week or less …

Although people who recover from COVID-19 usually gain some immune defenses against reinfection, they get additional protection from vaccines, especially against severe disease, according to two studies published on Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. One study of 22,566 people in Brazil who had recovered from COVID found that all four vaccines in use there – from Sinovac Biotech , AstraZeneca, …

ISLAMABAD: At a time when the government is struggling to overcome the no-confidence motion, members of Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) commended the resilience and growth performance of Pakistani economy in light of the global economic turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and continued complex regional security environment. The feedback came from the members at the conclusion of the Fifth …

ISLAMABAD: A number of hospitals have stopped providing services under the government’s Health Card programme due to payment issues. Even the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) Cardiac Centre has stopped implanting stents for the last over one week as the vendor has refused to provide stents due to non-payment of bills of over Rs100 million. On the other hand, …

ISLAMABAD: The Punjab Health Department on Thursday announced that Sehat Card scheme has been extended across the Punjab province as promised by Prime Minister Imran Khan. According to data provided by Punjab Health Department, over one million people have so far been benefited from Sehat Card across the province. The provincial government had issued Sehat Insaf cards to more than 5.1 million …