Director General Balram Bhargava of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has announced that Phase 2 clinical trials of two indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccines have been almost completed. India has two indigenous vaccine candidates—ZyCOV-D by Zydus Cadila and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech. He said that while final trials normally …
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At-home Use Antibodies Tests in Question
The United Kingdom’s Royal College of Pathologists has called for more stringent rules on kits sold directly to consumers, warning that they can “mislead the public and put individuals at risk”. They say that the tests should be used with professional back-up and should give the right results that are …
Read More »Australia’s Vaccination Plans
Backtracking on his earlier suggestion to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for all, the Australian prime minister has clarified, “There are no compulsory vaccines in Australia,” and that there will be “no compulsory vaccine, but there will be a lot of encouragement and measures to get as high a rate of …
Read More »AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 Vaccine for Japan
According to Japanese health minister Katsunobu Kato, British company AstraZeneca Plc will supply 120 million doses of its vaccine being developed with the University of Oxford. The first tranche of 30 million doses will be received in March, 2021. AstraZeneca is conducting the final-stage clinical trial of its experimental AZD1222 …
Read More »China’s Vaccine for COVID-19
The Wuhan Institute of Biological Products has announced that its COVID-19 vaccine will be commercially available by the end of December, 2020. Chinese vaccine manufacturer Sinopharm CNBG has begun conducting Phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine in thousands of human volunteers, after it was found to provoke strong antibody …
Read More »Russia is the Frontrunner with Sputnik V
President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia’s health ministry has granted regulatory approval for Phase 3 clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine, which will begin very shortly, with tens of thousands of people in the Moscow region being vaccinated to gauge its efficacy and safety. In doing so, Russia …
Read More »The Great Race
As of August 19, 2020, there were 170 research teams around the world (tracked by the World Health Organization) working post haste on developing a vaccine for COVID-19. It’s a race among different nations; in fact, it has become a matter of great prestige and immensely high stakes for nations. …
Read More »Risk factors for death from COVID-19
Coauthor Zhibo Liu of a research on risk factors for death from COVID-19 identified in Wuhan patients, has stated that, “Older age, showing signs of sepsis on admission, underlying diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, and the prolonged use of noninvasive ventilation were important factors in the deaths of …
Read More »Roche’s cobas SARS-CoV-2 test receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization
Basel, 13 March 2020 – Roche, a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the cobas® SARS-CoV-2 Test. It is intended for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, in …
Read More »The Other Side of Medical Education in Nepal
Medical education is one of the most competitive and demanding professions. It was only after the dawn of democracy in 1950 that the Department of Health Service was established in Nepal (1). During the past 70 years, more hospital and academic centers for health services have come up in different …
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