Health

RAWALPINDI: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has extended restrictions on inbound travellers to Pakistan till Oct 31 as they will be subjected to testing and quarantine stipulations as per procedure. However, inbound travellers from 12 category C countries will only be allowed subject to exemption by committee as per procedure in vogue. A notification issued by the CAA on Friday …

CanSinoBIO’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, given at a lower dosage than that for adults, is safe and triggers an immune response in children aged 6-17, results from a small trial showed. Researchers decided to lower the dosage after a few participants developed fever and headaches graded at level 2 severity – the second-lowest of four levels. In children, the lower dose …

Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against serious illness, although rival shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca showed better protection rates, a large real world study from Malaysia showed. The latest data is a boost to the Chinese firm, whose COVID-19 vaccine has been under growing scrutiny over its effectiveness following reports of infections among healthcare workers fully immunized with the …

RAWALPINDI: Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan has warned that after Sept 30, all unvaccinated domestic and international travelers would face restrictions. The aviation minister warned in a Twitter video message on Thursday that unvaccinated persons would be denied access to a variety of services after Sept 30. Vaccines, he claimed, are widely available. The aviation minister said: “People who have …

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has lodged a case against two employees of Lahore’s Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital for making “fake entry” of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Covid-19 vaccination. The FIA nominated guard Abdul Hassan and ward attendant Adil Rafique in the FIR stating that they used tab name/login of vaccinator Naveed Altaf to make bogus entry of …

SYDNEY: Police in Australia’s second largest city of Melbourne arrested more than 200 people after projectiles thrown by protesters injured two officers on Wednesday, the third consecutive day of demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions. Golf balls, batteries and bottles were among the items thrown at police during the protests held in defiance of stay-at home orders after a two-week closure of …

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation strengthened its air quality guidelines on Wednesday, saying air pollution was now one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, causing seven million premature deaths a year. Urgent action is needed to reduce exposure to air pollution, said the UN body, ranking its burden of disease on a par with smoking and unhealthy eating. …

ISLAMABAD: Not only the adolescents in the age group of 15 to 17 years have responded poorly to the recent government initiative to vaccinate them against Covid-19 but a large number of adults also seem reluctant to get their second jab as health experts find behavioural issues rather than government slackness behind their slow response. Less than 25 million people, …

MELBOURNE: Melbo­urne riot police used pepper spray, foam baton rounds and rubber ball grenades to disperse a violent protest against mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for construction workers on Tuesday. More than 1,000 demonstrators wearing work boots and hi-vis jackets rampaged through the centre of Australia’s second-largest city, lighting flares, throwing bottles, attacking police cars and chanting their opposition to vaccines and …

ISLAMABAD: As the cases of Covid-19 continue to decrease across the country, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Tuesday decided to lift additional restrictions in six districts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, general non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) will remain enforced across the country till Sept 30. The situation will be reviewed on Sept 28. The NCOC had on …