Health

ISLAMABAD: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) claimed 68 more lives in the country in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 4,619. According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 3,387 new infections were detected after 22,050 tests were conducted in the previous 24 hours, taking the national tally of cases to 225,283. More than 1.3 million tests …

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently named AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 and Moderna’s mRNA-1273 as two of the leading candidates in the COVID-19 vaccine race. Here we look at what Moderna’s mRNA-1273 has to offer. About mRNA-1273, Moderna’s Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 mRNA-1273 is an mRNA vaccine candidate against COVID-19 encoding for a prefusion stabilized form of the Spike (S) protein, which was selected by Moderna …

Brazilian health regulator Anvisa on Friday approved clinical trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac, according to an official gazette publication. The study – first announced on June 11 – is led by Instituto Butantan, a research center funded by the state of Sao Paulo. The agreement with Sinovac includes not only trials but also the transference …

China’s military last month received the greenlight to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Ad5-nCoV, developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics. The Ad5-nCoV is one of China’s eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The shot also won approval for human testing in Canada. China’s Central …

PESHAWAR: More than 50 per cent of coronavirus patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have recovered from the infection against the nationwide recovery rate of 48.08 per cent. The province has so far recorded 27,506 Covid-19 cases and 15,520 of them (50.42 per cent) have recovered, declares the World Health Organisation in a report. Khyber Medical University dean (public health) Prof Ziaul …

COVID-19 vaccine candidates will enter late-stage clinical studies by the end of the month, with others beginning in August, September and October, the US government’s top infectious diseases expert said on Thursday. The news comes as Moderna, which is at the forefront of the country’s vaccine development efforts, reiterated earlier in the day that a late-stage trial with 30,000 volunteers …

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi said on Thursday their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara failed to meet the main goals of a US study testing it in the most critically ill COVID-19 patients. Previous trial results had shown that the drug did not help patients with less severe COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and shares of Regeneron fell about …

Switzerland announced Thursday that COVID-19 patients beyond those on clinical trials could be given remdesivir, the first drug shown to be relatively effective in treating the new coronavirus. At least two major US studies have shown that the anti-viral drug can reduce the duration of hospital stays for those suffering from the novel coronavirus. “With immediate effect, remdesivir can be …

KARACHI: Sindh government has established a new 50-bed hospital for coronavirus patients in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Johar area which will be functionalised from Friday, on Wednesday. Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho announced that a new hospital with a capacity of 50 beds has been established in Gulistan-e-Johar area of Karachi. She said that the hospital was established in a short …

The US notched more than 52,000 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours Wednesday, a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed, a new one-day record as infections surge around the country. The Baltimore-based university’s tracker showed 52,898 more cases as of 8:30 pm (0030 Thursday GMT), bringing the total number of cases since the pandemic reached the United States to 2’682,270. …