New York: In an ongoing study of more than 300 Covid-19 patients treated with convalescent plasma therapy in the US, researchers suggest that the treatment is safe and effective. The study, published in the American Journal of Pathology, tracked 350 severely ill Covid-19 patients admitted to the Houston Methodist’s system of eight hospitals from March […]
Category: Health
COVID-19 may cause deadly blood clots in pregnant women
New York: In a fight against the novel coronavirus, researchers have revealed that COVID-19 may increase the risk of blot clots in women who are pregnant or taking estrogen with birth control or hormone replacement therapy. According to the researchers, the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has proven unusual with respect to the spectrum of its pathological […]
Pfizer, BioNTech start late stage clinical trial of Covid vaccine
New York: US-based Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech have announced the start of a late stage clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine jointly developed by the two companies. The Phase 2/3 study will involve up to 30,000 participants between 18 and 85 years of age, the two companies said on Monday. The vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, […]
Too much hand sanitiser can lead to severe hand dermatitis
New Delhi: Hand sanitisers have irrefutably become the most important thing in our lives to protect ourselves during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic; the other things include masks and social distancing. It has been a long time since hand sanitisers became mandatory; while they are effective in dealing with germs and bacteria, excessive usage can result […]
Cipla gets DCGI nod to sell Covid-19 drug Favipiravir under brand ‘Ciplenza’, to be launched in first week of August
Mumbai: Drug maker Cipla Ltd. on Friday said it has received regulatory approval from Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for the launch of Favipiravir in the country under the brand name Ciplenza to treat mild to moderate Covid-19 patients. Favipiravir is an off patent, oral antiviral drug that has been shown to hasten clinical […]
Why chloroquine should not be used for Covid-19 treatment
London: The antimalarial drug chloroquine widely rumoured to help prevent Covid-19 is not able to prevent infection of human lung cells with the novel coronavirus, say German researchers. The current study, published in the journal Nature, revealed that chloroquine is, therefore, unlikely to prevent the spread of the virus in the lung and should not be […]
Australia’s Monash University develops 20-minute COVID-19 blood test
Melbourne: A blood test developed by Australia’s Monash University could detect positive COVID-19 cases in about 20 minutes. Based on commonly used blood typing infrastructure, researchers at the Melbourne-based university developed a simple agglutination assay to identify antibodies generated in response to COVID-19, Xinhua news agency reported. The test requires 25 microliters of plasma from blood […]
‘COVID-19 vaccine to reach usable stage after 2020’
New Delhi: While India is set to begin the trials of its indigenous coronavirus vaccine from this week, a top official from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has claimed that a vaccine cure for the deadly COVID-19 upon its development and marketing would reach usable stage only after 2020. “A usable vaccine to cure COVID-19 and […]
Turmeric compound could kill certain coronaviruses
Beijing: Aficionados of Indian food already know about the medicinal properties of turmeric. Now researchers have found that a natural compound found in this commonly used spice could help eliminate certain viruses. This compound in turmeric, called “curcumin”, can prevent Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) — an alpha-group coronavirus that infects pigs — from infecting cells, said […]
Results show Moderna COVID-19 vaccine safe; phase 3 trials to start this month
New York: US-based pharmaceutical major Moderna’s experimental vaccine, mRNA-1273, designed to protect against Covid-19 virus, was generally well tolerated and prompted neutralising antibody activity in healthy adults, say researchers. According to the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, mRNA-1273 is designed to induce neutralising antibodies directed at a portion of the coronavirus […]