New coronavirus is preventable and treatable: China health official

Guo Yanhong, a hospital administration supervisor at the commission, made the remarks at a daily press conference, in which she also said the percentage of infected patients in virus epicentre Wuhan who are critically ill had dropped to 18% now from 38% at the beginning of the outbreak.

BEIJING: The novel coronavirus that has killed more than 1,700 people in China is "preventable and treatable", an official from the countrys National Health Commission told Reuters on Monday....read more

COVID-19 in pandemic alert period phase 5-6

• So far COVID-19 is a "public-health emergency of international concern."
• The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a pandemic as "the worldwide spread of a new disease."
• It is also characterized by a lack of available treatment, a lack of human immunity, and ability potential to spread from person to person....read more

Fictions and COVID-19

Normally introduction of a new vaccine takes at least 18 months and only in rare exceptional circumstances, it can be introduced in the market in 12 months.

Most pharmaceutical companies are scared that coron virus will last in the circulation only for 6 months and will never come back like SARS and therefore, why spend billions of dollars in research....read more

Coronavirus: China announces drop in new cases for fifth straight day 19 cases on ship in serious condition, 3642 likely deaths

Summary COVID-19 virus possibly behaves like SARS; causes mild illness in 82%, severe illness in 15%, critical illness in 3% and death in 2% cases ( 15% of admitted serious cases, 71% with comorbidity); affects all ages but predominantly males (56%) with median age 59 years (2-74 years, less in children below 15); with mean incubation period 2-14 days (3 days based on 1,324 cases), 5.2 days (based on 425 cases), 6.4 days in travellers from Wuhan); mean time to symptoms 5 days; mean time to pneumonia 9 days; mean time to death 14 days; 3-4 reproductive number R0 ( flu 1.2 and SARS 2); epidemic doubling time 7.5 days; has origin possibly from bats, spreads via large droplets and predominately from people having lower respiratory infections and hence standard droplet precautions are the answer for the public and close contacts and airborne precautions for the healthcare workers dealing with the secretions....read more

How Corona Aware Are You

Health Sutras By Dr K K Aggarwal

not share leftover antibiotics with friends and family.

Healthcare News Monitor

Pharma Cos Don’t See Supply Shortage, Oppose Exports Ban

ET Healthworld – Divya Rajagopal

Glaxosmithkline India (GSK), one of the largest manufacturers of branded paracetamol in India, said it does not anticipate any supply shortages “at the moment” due to the Covid-19 outbreak in China. There has been some panic over shortage of essential medicines in India and across the world. GSK India manufacturers Crocin. “We don’t foresee any shortage — at least till May,” A Vaidheesh, head, India, GSK, told ET. GSK’s paracetamol business is estimated around 200 crore. On Monday, in an interview to ET, Vasanth Narasimhan, global head of Novartis, also said the company does not anticipate supply disruption. Dilip Shanghvi, managing director, Sun Pharma, also assured that India’s largest drugmaker has stocks. Lobby group Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) said its members have stocks of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for essential medicines. IPA secretary general Sudarshan Jain said the situation was under control, and that “there is no need for panic.” Jain said some smaller companies might see API shortage, which was leading to panic buying, hoarding and, subsequently, high prices. China supplies 70% of APIs to global drug companies and the current crisis has raised questions on whether the country will be ready to supply pharmaceutical products. However, Satyanarayana Chava of Laurus Labs, one of the largest API companies, told ET that the situation will be troubling if things do not settle by March-end, till when things were under control. According to him, suppliers are slowing down return to work and consignments are being shipped to China, but not to Wuhan, the epicentre of the Covid-19.

Pharma biggies see opportunity in Covid-19

ET Healthworld – Swati Bharadwaj

Concerns over the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on the Indian pharma industry loomed large over BioAsia 2020, but top guns of the industry were of the opinion that it was a good opportunity for India to wrest back its supremacy in the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) manufacturing space from China. “In the 80’s and 90’s, India was one of the largest producers of major APIs in the world but we ceded this to China due to various reasons like economies of scale and subsidies that China gave its industry. This (API shortfall) is a wonderful opportunity to get back in the game,” said Dr Reddy’s Laboratories chairman Satish Reddy. Biocon founder and chairperson and managing director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw too strongly batted for India to convert this crisis into an opportunity. “Right now the pharma industry is very well aware of what the impact could be if it (virus) does not sort itself out in the next four or five months. There is a lot of thinking going into how do we basically plan ahead. We need to be more proactive and use this crisis to bring back some of the manufacturing and intermediates to India.” However, a cautious Dilip Shanghvi, founder and MD of Sun Pharma, pointed out that Indian pharma may not be able to cash in on the opportunity in the near term as it takes at least two to three years to build capacities for manufacturing APIs at scale.

Set up burns ward in every govt hospital: Beyond Carlton to state

The New Indian Express

Fire accidents have claimed the lives of many and left some others scarred due to burn injuries. However now, Beyond Carlton — the country’s first citizen-led fire-safety initiative — has submitted a memorandum to the Government of Karnataka to set up burn wards in every government hospital of Karnataka. Beyond Carlton was formed by Uday Vijayan, a month after he lost his son in the Carlton Towers fire accident on February 23, 2010. The memorandum submitted to the government focused on setting up of a burns ward in every government hospital in the state and to direct every private hospital in the state to have a dedicated burns unit to provide emergency care. It suggests setting up skin banks across the state to assist the treatment of serious burn injuries, expediting the utilisation of the National Programme for Prevention, and Management of Burn Injuries (NPPMBI) budget for setting up burns wards, formulating a training programme for healthcare service providers to treat such injuries, and ensure the availability of trained healthcare professionals across the state. Sharing the details of the fire statistics brought out by the National Crime Records Beaurau (NCRB), Govt of India recently, Uday Vijayan, Managing Trustee and President, Beyond Carlton said, “As per the NCRB reports, in 2018, a total of 13,099 cases of fire accidents were reported in the country and about 13,397 cases in the year 2017. As many as 12,748 people died in the year 2018, which means that about 35 Indians die in a fire every day.” Vasanthi Hariprakash, Member, Executive Council, Beyond Carlton said, “While we are pleased that Karnataka is one of the few states to set up a one-of-its-kind skin bank, we are also aware that a singular skin bank cannot address the healthcare needs of the entire state. Hence, having a burn ward is necessary in every district of the government hospitals.”

Medical equipment of Rs 7L stolen from hospital

Ahmedabad Mirror

A homeopathic medicine practitioner on Tuesday lodged a complaint of theft against one of the cleaners working at his hospital, accusing him of theft of medical equipment worth Rs7 lakh. In his complaint at Odhav police station, Alkesh Dave, 32, resident of Nikol, claimed Naresh Khatik stole the medical equipment on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. Khatik was booked under section 381 of IPC. As per the complaint, Dave runs Gurukrupa multi-specialty hospital and has a staff that includes a receptionist, two male nurses, two cleaners and a medical store attendant. He told the police that there are two keys to the OT, one of which remains with him while other is kept at the desk of the receptionist. On Monday, he locked the OT and left for home at 10 pm The next morning when he was on his way to the hospital, he received a call from Ratansingh Rathod, the medical store attendant, that Khatik was not in the hospital. The latter had been hired on February 6 and used to stay on the premises itself. On reaching the hospital, Dave opened the OT with his key, only to find four pieces of equipment used to perform laparoscopy were missing. These included a CO2 Insufflator, a light source with cable, a cautery machine and a camera, all worth a total of Rs 7 lakh. Surprised that the lock was intact despite the theft, they went to look for the other key at the desk, but it was missing. Dave tried calling Khatik, but his phone was switched off.