Health

WASHINGTON: Scien­tists have known for several months the new coronavirus can become suspended in microdroplets expelled by patients when they speak and breathe, but until now there was no proof that these tiny particles are infectious. A new study by scientists at the University of Nebraska that was uploaded to a medical preprint site this week has shown for the …

KARACHI: The novel coronavirus has claimed 19 more lives and infected as many as 1,109 people during the past 24 hours in Sindh. In a statement on the daily COVID-19 situation, CM Murad Ali Shah said that 19 more people died from the coronavirus in past 24 hours, taking the death toll from the disease to 2060. He maintained that …

TOKYO: Japan’s health ministry has approved dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid, as a second treatment of COVID-19 after a trial in Britain showed the drug reduced death rates in hospitalised patients. The ministry included dexamethasone as an option for treatment along with Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral drug remdesivir in a recent revision to its handbook. The revision was …

Two studies offered new hope of a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus on Monday, as the World Health Organization warned about a possible acceleration of the disease in Africa.  Seven months after COVID-19 was first identified in China and has since killed more than 600,000 people worldwide and battered economies, there is growing alarm over fresh outbreaks of the …

Russia claimed on Tuesday that the Covid-19 vaccine developed with the Russian Defense Ministry has completed Phase 2 trials and ready for use. “Russia’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection, which was created by military specialists and scientists of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, is ready, said First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov. According to …

LAHORE: Unlike Pakistan health authorities, the whole world, especially Europe, has stopped hydroxychloroquine trials as they did not find evidence that medicine can treat the coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine is anti-malarial drug and is used to cure lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The study released on Monday at the University of Health Sciences by its VC Dr Javed Akram claimed that the drug …

LAHORE: The preliminary results of the country’s largest drug trial on the coronavirus — Pakistan Randomized and Observational Trial to Evaluate Coronavirus Treatment (PROTECT) — has not only established the safety of hydroxychloroquine, a drug generally used for malaria, in terms of mortality but has also shown significant recovery rates in Covid-19 patients when used in combination with two other …

Sister Ruth Lewis, incharge at the Darul Sukoon organisation in Karachi, passed away from the novel coronavirus at the Aga Khan University Hospital Monday night, the organisation said in a statement on Tuesday. She was 77. Sister Ruth had been admitted to the hospital since July 9, Darul Sukoon’s Human Resources Manager Tariq Samuel said. Samuel added that 21 children …

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) has rejected reports that the government has approved an increase in prices of essential drugs. A spokesperson for the ministry said pharmaceutical companies have a right to annually jack up prices of drugs by seven to ten per cent without the government’s approval under Drug Pricing Policy 2018. The federal government revised …

Bangladesh has approved the third-phase trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd, officials said on Monday, as infections continue to rise in the densely-populated South Asian country. Sinovac has been looking for volunteers outside pof China country as the number of coronavirus cases there has dwindled, said a member of Bangladesh’s national technical advisory committee …