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  • Third wave could hit India by October, situation could become severe; Experts warn

    A third wave of coronavirus infections is likely to hit India by October, and although it will be better controlled than the latest outbreak, the pandemic will remain a public health threat for at least another year, according to a Reuters poll of medical experts.

    The June 3-17 snap survey of 40 healthcare specialists, doctors, scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and professors from around the world showed that a significant pickup in vaccinations will likely provide some cover to a fresh outbreak. Of those who ventured a prediction, over 85% of respondents, or 21 of 24, said the next wave will hit by October, including three who forecast it as early as August, and 12 in September. The remaining three said between November and February.

    But over 70% of experts, or 24 of 34, said any new outbreak would be better controlled compared with the current one, which has been far more devastating — with shortage of vaccines, medicines, oxygen and hospital beds — than the smaller first surge in infections last year.

    “It will be more controlled, as cases will be much less because more vaccinations would have been rolled out and there would be some degree of natural immunity from the second-wave,” said Dr. Randeep Guleria, director at All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).So far, India has only fully vaccinated about 5% of its estimated 950 million eligible population, leaving many millions vulnerable to infections and deaths.

    While a majority of healthcare experts predicted the vaccination drive would pick up significantly this year, they cautioned against an early removal of restrictions, as some States have done.

    When asked if children and those under 18 years would be most at risk in a potential third wave, nearly two-thirds of experts, or 26 of 40, said yes.

    “The reason being they are a completely virgin population in terms of vaccination because currently there is no vaccine available for them,” said Dr. Pradeep Banandur, head of epidemiology department at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS).

    Experts warn the situation could become severe.

    “If children get infected in large numbers and we are not prepared, there is nothing you can do at the last minute,” said Dr. Devi Shetty, a cardiologist at Narayana Health and an advisor to the Karnataka State government on pandemic response planning.

    “It will be a whole different problem as the country has very, very few paediatric intensive care unit beds, and that is going to be a disaster,” he said. But 14 experts said children were not at risk.

    Earlier this week, a senior Union Health Ministry official said children were vulnerable and susceptible to infections but that analysis has shown a less severe health impact.

    While 25 of 38 respondents said future coronavirus variants would not make existing vaccines ineffective, in response to a separate question, 30 of 41 experts said the coronavirus will remain a public health threat in India for at least a year.

    Eleven experts said the threat would remain for under a year, 15 said for under two years, while 13 said over two years and two said the risks will never go away.

    “COVID-19 is a solvable problem, as obviously it was easy to get a solvable vaccine. In two years, India likely will develop herd immunity through vaccine and exposure of the disease,” said Robert Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland and international scientific advisor, Global Virus Network.

    REUTERS

  • Gunfight started in Wagoora area of Naugam Srinagar

    #Encounter has started at Wagoora, Naugam area of #Srinagar. Two #Militants trapped. Security forces on job. Further details shall follow. @JmuKmrPolice

  • COVID19: Single dose of vaccine sufficient for those already infected; Study

    A study by Hyderabad’s AIG Hospitals has claimed that a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine is sufficient for those already infected by the disease before.

    The hospital said it conducted a study on 260 healthcare workers who got vaccinated between January 16 and February 5 to assess the immunological memory response in all those patients. All patients were given the Oxford-Serum vaccine Covishield.

    Two significant observations came out of the study, which has been published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, a peer-reviewed journal.

    The previously infected group (people who got infected with COVID-19) showed a greater antibody response to a single dose of vaccine compared with those who had no prior infection.

    It also revealed that Memory T-cell responses elicited by a single dose of vaccine were significantly higher in the previously infected group compared with those who had no prior infection.

    It was concluded that higher memory T and B-cell responses in addition to higher antibody response with a single dose of vaccine given at 3-6 months after recovery from COVID-19 may be considered at par with two doses of vaccine for individuals already infected with COVID-19.

    “The results show that people who got infected with COVID-19 need not take two doses of vaccine yet with a single dose can develop robust antibody and memory cell response at par with two-doses for those who didn’t get the infection.

    This will significantly help at a time when there’s a shortage of vaccine in the country and more people can be covered using the saved doses,” said Dr. D Nageshwar Reddy, Chairman, AIG Hospitals, and one of the co-authors in the study.

    “Once we attain the requisite number of people vaccinated for achieving herd immunity, these patients who got infected and received only one dose can take the second dose of the vaccine.

    At this point, all our strategies should be directed at the widespread distribution of available vaccines and to include the maximum number of people at least with a single dose,” he added.

    During the second Covid wave when cases were growing exponentially; the vaccination rate took a downturn. As of April 27, when the growth rate of active infection was 5%, the growth of vaccinated people was just 1.4 per cent.

    “We need to modify vaccination strategy based on scientific evidence and with the objective that a larger set of the population can be covered in the shortest duration,” he said.

    WITH IANS INPUTS

  • Ompora leopard attack: 15 cages, camera, cable traps, 20 shooters on job: Official

    Budgam, Jun 14: Eleven days after the Ompora incident in which a leopard mauled a 4-year-old girl to death, search operation continues by the wildlife officials at various hotspots of the area to eliminate the man-eater animal.

    Officials told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that the leopard was earlier spotted by locals and security forces inside the Deputy Commissioner’s office premises but wildlife officials have not received any information about the presence of the leopard in the area since then.

    “Search operation is continuing from the last eleven days and staff has been deployed at every hotspot to eliminate this man-eater leopard,” an official said.

    “We deputed teams at hotspots like Rangreth, DC complex, Ichgam, Khanpora, Qazibagh and Gudsathoo to either catch or kill the animal. Infact authorities have started the cleaning process of nursery at DC complex but couldn’t find the leopard again,” an official said.

    Officials said teams are placed around 10 kilometres from the place of incident and have placed around 15 cages, cable traps, in Ompora nursery and nearby locality besides have placed at least 20 shooters at vulnerable spots to kill the leopard.

    “We have also placed camera traps to record the movement of the leopard, however haven’t located the leopard from the day it was spotted at DC complex late Tuesday evening,” an official said.

    Meanwhile, district forest officer Budgam told KNO that the work is going on a war footing basis on the 160 kanal of the nursery and 40 percent of the fallen trees were removed from the nursery while 30 percent of thinning and branch cutting has also been completed.

    He said that the forest department is making a DPR which they will complete in two days and sent to the government to release funds for fencing of the nursery.

    “The officials are working round the clock. Manpower of forest protest force, wildlife, SDRF and forest department are on jon to eliminate or catch the leopard,” he said.

    He said that area is being properly santised by the officials, to prevent any untoward incident in the future.

    Earlier on June 3, four-year-old girl was mauled to death by the leopard after she was taken away by the man-eater from her home in Ompora Housing Colony in Budgam—(KNO)

  • COVID-19 vaccination: Health workers face rude behaviour during door-to-door drive

    Srinagar, Jun 14: As the door- to- door vaccination drive across Jammu and Kashmir is going on in full -swing, health workers at several places are facing rude behaviour as many people are still hesitant to take the vaccine.

    During the last few days, many videos of confrontation between health workers and the public have gone viral on social media, indicating the hesitancy and fear among people to take the jab.

    A video which is said to be from North Kashmir went viral on Monday in which health workers are persuading a family to get vaccinated, however, hesitant to take the dose, the family members start misbehaving with them.

    The video has got a mixed response from netizens as many believe health care workers shouldn’t compel anybody to take the vaccination as around 15 percent health workers are yet to take the dose, while some commented that vaccination is the only way to beat the deadly pandemic.

    “Unable to understand why medical teams are insisting to vaccinate and make videos to defame any one, rather they should follow the protocol to get their written consent for not opting to vaccinate (sic),” Mudasir Ahmad said.

    “It is utterly unethical to behave like this with our Medical Nurses who are doing a great job of vaccinations. This women should never forget that the health and the lives of those who are trusted to their care depends on his skill and attention of a doctor, we must respect our medical facilities (sic),” wrote another person on his Facebook handle.

    “Medical staff are given targets regarding vaccination. They have to cover up the whole population above 18. If few of them don’t want to get themselves vaccinated, it’s fine… But employees are making them secure by filming, so that if their higher ups will ask them about the shortfall of targets, employees will be having a proof to justify their position (sic),” wrote Dr Ajay on his Facebook page.

    Meanwhile, a top health official said that vaccination is the only way to beat Covid-19 and people should shun the hesitancy and get the jab at the earliest—(KNO)

  • Re-Registration of non JK registered vehicles: Fresh order in contempt of the High Court Orders: Adv Zahoor Says will file Contempt petition to challenge order

    Srinagar, Jun 14: After the Government issued the fresh orders for the re-registration of non-JK registered vehicles, Advocate Zahoor Ahmad Monday said that the new order is in contempt of HC order and that he will challenge the same by filing contempt petition.

    Advocate Zahoor, who had earlier challenged the government order, said that he through his lawyer is going to file a contempt petition, as the fresh order issued by the Transport department amounts to contempt of Jammu and Kashmir’s High Court judgment.

    Speaking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Advocate Zahoor said that the order amounts to the contempt of the double bench high court judgement, as the fresh circular issued by the transport department is referring to the judgment passed by the Double Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court on 29 April of this year, but the judgment passed have not been mentioned in the fresh order issued by the Transport department, which directly amounts to the contempt of the court orders.

    “We have gone through the order issued by the Transport department. Our team is on it, since there are vacations as soon as the court fully resumes, and we are going to file a contempt petition”, he said.

    Pertinently, RTO Kashmir had issued the circular on March 27, directing the vehicle owners who had purchased the Non JK number registered vehicles to apply for new registration marks as per the provisions of section 47/50 of motor vehicle act 1988 read with the rule 54 of central motor vehicle act 1989, within a time frame of 15 days.

    The sanctity of the order was challenged by the Petitioner Zahoor Ahmad through his council in Jammu and Kashmir High Court, after which the case was referred to the Double Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, and 28 page judgement in the petition was pronounced on April 29—(KNO)

  • Heart Surgery and COVID-19 ERA

    Covid -19 A severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak has been declared a Public Health Emergency by WHO since January 2020. The rapid, exponential, increase in cases makes prevention and control of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) extremely critical. Although clinical manifestations of COVID-19 are mainly respiratory, however patients may develop severe cardiovascular damage which may lead to fatal outcome,the impact of COVID-19 on cardiac surgery have been immense . Cardiac surgery practice might not be on the frontline of COVID-19 patient care. However, the pandemic affects cardiac surgery units in important ways like limited intensive care unit (ICU) beds and ventilation sites, necessity to postpone elective and/or complex cardiac surgeries, shortage of health care workers, sick health care staff, restrictions in clinical cardio-surgical meetings ( limiting the number of attendees in cardio-surgical meetings), patients developing COVID-19 after cardiac surgery, patients with COVID-19 needing urgent cardiac operations, and cancelation of training and education, professional conferences, exams, courses. Due to all thes factors the cardiac surgery has been badly touched, As cardiac surgeons, we have a responsibility to ensure that evidence-based, essential cardiac operations are provided to the general public at prsent health care crisis time but at the same time the wider burden of those procedures on the healthcare system and health care workers must be minimized of COVID-19 to do away with the crisis.

    File Photo | Dr. Farooq Ahmad Ganie

    As COVID-19 puts health services and health care providers under immense mental and pysical pressure. While decisions on whether or not to perform cardiac surgery is not always easy with continued escalation of dissease burden the decisions on cardiac surgeries became more difficult with many dilemmas Should we operate in this escalating phase only on younger, low risk patients or only extrem emergencie it is very important when these decisions are made, both the decision process and the decision made has to be documented and should with stand with medicolegal aspect too. At the same time the surgeon while taking the descision must consider the risk of exposing these patients to a possible COVID-19 infection during hospitalization and/or exposing himself and other health care workers to infection. We must bear in mind that Most patients with COVID-19 have mild or no symptoms and therefore, it may be difficult to identify such patients. One must realize that cardiac surgery units have a responsibility to the patient, in a particular state. Therefore, in this hard times , patients with elective cardiac procedures may be best managed by delaying their care until a few months or year . This may be in the patient`s best interest,and in the intrest of health care provider . as It has been proved that patients with acute cardiac pathologies who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 often have a poor prognosis . Therefore, developing COVID-19 after cardiac surgery might be associated with a high mortality
    But there is a certain group of patients like patients with acute coronary syndrome in case of severe coronary artery disease (e.g. severe left main trunk stenosis, severe triple vessel disease with high SYNTAX score) who are not eligible for conservative or interventional treatment may be operated on. This may be true also for younger patients with symptomatic severe aortic valve stenosis, left-sided endocarditis with a severe valve defect and/or large mobile vegetation, large ascending aortic aneurysm, acute type A aortic dissection and acute heart failure due to severe coronary artery or valvular heart disease, Under such circumstances decisions should be made depending on available resources and supported by an ethical and legal framework. what should be done and what should be avoided remains still un answered. how can we protect the patient and health care workers.It is crucial to provide a thoughtful decision making process on whether or not a cardiac surgery should be performed. Decisions made today may be different from those made only a few days later under these rapidly changing circumstances. One must weigh the risk of delaying surgical care with the risk of exposing the patient to COVID-19.
    The COVID‐19 pandemic has affected health care system with uncertainty of decisions Massive and large scale research is need of hour to understand to develop preventive treatments, and establish management protocols in cardiac surgery patients through such period.

    Dr Farooq Ahmad Ganie
    Assistant Professor Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Skims Soura.

  • Body of 23-year-old militant found from Soura: Police

    Srinagar, June 13: Body of 23-year-old militant was found in Soura locality here on Sunday evening, officials said.

    A police official told GNS that body of Amir Ahmad Malik who was active militant category C of Al-Badr outfit was found from Anchar area of soura.

    A resident of Hyder Gund Zainapora Shopian, Amir, was active since 31 October 2020, the official said.

    Confirming it, a senior police officer told GNS that a case has been registered and investigations taken up.

    “It could be a case of infighting also and police is investigating all angles,” he said. (GNS)

  • New Coronavirus found in bats in china, Scientists worried

    In a shocking revelation, Chinese researchers claim to have found a batch of new coronaviruses in bats. They even say that the newly found viruses in the bats include one that may be the second-closest yet (genetically) to the COVID-19 virus, reports CNN.

    According to the researchers, their discoveries in a single, small region of Yunnan province, southwestern China show just how many coronaviruses there are in bats and how many have the potential to spread to people.

    In a report published in the journal Cell, the Chinese researchers from Shandong University said, “In total, we assembled 24 novel coronavirus genomes from different bat species, including four SARS-CoV-2 like coronaviruses.”

    One was very similar, genetically to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that’s the cause of the current COVID-19 pandemic, they said.

    It would be the closest strain to SARS-CoV-2 except for genetic differences on the spike protein, the knob-like structure that the virus uses when attaching to cells, they said.

    Researchers are trying to find where SARS-CoV-2 came from. Although a bat is a likely source, it’s possible the virus infected an intermediary animal. The SARS virus that caused an outbreak in 2002-2004 was tracked to an animal called a civet cat.

    Three of the samples described in Thursday’s report were also close to SARS genetically.

    This discovery of new coronaviruses in bats comes at a time when scientists and countries across the world are calling for further investigations to figure out whether the virus originated naturally or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

  • We were never against dialogue process, but there is no call from Centre: PAGD spokesman

    Srinagar 13 June: Newly appointed Spokesman of People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami on Sunday said that PAGD has never been against dialogue process but could they initiate dialogue in absence of offer from from centre.

    Speaking exclusively to Kashmir News Service, he said that the decision taken by centre on August 5 2019 was taken without being taking the political leaders and people of Jammu and Kashmir on board.

    “There was no demand regarding the revocation of article 370 and bifurcation of state from any group of people nor it was discussed here with the mainstream parties,” he said.

    Criticising the demotion of J&K State into Union territory, Tarigami said that there has been examples wherein union territories have been demanding statehood but downgrading the Jammu and Kashmir state to Union Territory was neither demand from Kashmir nor from Jammu.

    He also said that the mainstream parties of Jammu and Kashmir have never been against dialogue process “if there will be any call from centre regarding dialogue, we will welcome it as we have been committed to dialogues.”

    Saying that PAGD members are committed to dialogue, he said,”There was somehow delay in chairing PAGD meeting but there were some issues especially the Covid pandemic which took it somehow long to call for a meeting but we are committed to the alliance agenda and there will be no compromise on it.”

    He also said that the public outreach program has been paused due to the Covid pandemic as there has been a protocol issued by the Government to curb the virus.

    “Once the pandemic will end, we will take all stakeholders on table to discuss the further strategy. We will resume public outreach programme once pandemic is over,” he said.(KNS)