Health

LONDON: Britain toughened its coronavirus restrictions on Tuesday, with England and Scotland going into another full lockdown, as a new variant spreads. Surging numbers of positive cases, and fears the a new variant of the virus is running out of control, prompted tougher action, which includes shutting schools, and a ban on leaving home except for essential shopping, medical reasons …

Criticism of India’s approval of a local Covid-19 vaccine without proof of its efficacy grew on Wednesday after news that a regulatory panel approved the shot just one day after asking the vaccine maker for more evidence it would work. The recommendations of the Indian drug regulator’s Subject Expert Committee (SEC) released on Tuesday show that the panel asked Bharat Biotech International …

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Experts advise against antibody drugs in pediatric COVID-19 As of now, antibody therapies for COVID-19 should not be used to treat infections with the new coronavirus in children or …

ISLAMABAD: Russia has once again offered to supply Pakistan with its Sputnik-V vaccine. Sources privy to the development told ARY News that the Russian Direct Investment Fund’s (RDIF) head wrote a letter to Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan through the country’s embassy in Islamabad seeking details of the vaccine registration process. In the letter, …

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday a new national lockdown for England until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, even as Britain ramped up its vaccination programme by becoming the first nation to start using the shot developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca. Johnson said people must stay at home again, …

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday warned the country to expect tougher restrictions to combat spiralling coronavirus cases, as a row flared over whether schools should reopen. “It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country,” Johnson told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr …

The US government is considering giving some people half the dose of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in order to speed vaccinations, a federal official said on Sunday. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine programme, said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” that officials were in talks with Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration about the idea. Moderna’s vaccine …

KARACHI: As the Sindh government waits for first supply of 250,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses by mid-January, the authorities have identified some 115,000 frontline health workers across the province who would be inoculated in the first phase of the programme in two major centres, becoming the first province in the country that had already designed such a strategy to meet the …

ISLAMABAD: As seven more people lost their struggle against Covid-19 on Sunday, the capital administration has advised coronavirus patients to seek medical help and avoid self treatment at home. “It has been observed that Covid-19 patients who were in very critical state were being brought to hospitals as majority preferred to isolate themselves in their homes and use oxygen cylinders, …

Egypt has approved the use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm with its rollout to start later in January, the health minister said. “The Egyptian pharmaceutical authority approved on Saturday the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine,” Hala Zayed said late Saturday, on the local MBC Masr channel. The first batch of the vaccine was delivered in December, with …