Srinagar: Out of 41 samples taken from patients with Coronavirus sympots have all turned negative, people should not worry but take precautions says Director SKIMS AG Ahanger.
People should not unnecessarily crowd hospitals. Minimise visits, People travelling from abroad must stay at home don’t approach hospitals unless there are symptoms, he said.
AVOID social gathering, AVOID public transport, AVOID cash transactions, he said.
Leh, Mar 18: The authorities in Union Territory of Ladakh Wednesday said two more patients have been tested positive for novel corona-virus, taking the total toll to 8, while many under active surveillance were departed from hospital.
According to wire service — Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Commissioner Secretary Ladakh and official spokesperson Rigzin Samphel said two more patients were rested positive, taking the total toll to 8.
Samphel said that “we have received test results of 34 more patients out of which only two have been tested positive. “They are the wife and son of a patient, who was already tested positive,” he said.
Medical Superintendent of SNM hospital Leh told—KNO that the two patients who were tested positive for corona-virus are son and wife of the patient Sajad Ali who was tested positive some days back.
He said that the other suspects kept under active surveillance have been discharged after they were tested negative for corona-virus —(KNO)
‘Decision to stop landing flights from Leh baby of Govt’
Srinagar, Mar 18: Airport authorities at Srinagar have refuted the reports that it didn’t allow a flight from Leh to land at Srinagar Airport on Wednesday.
Director Srinagar Airport, Santosh Dhoke told KNT that AI 448 flight from Leh to Srinagar has infact landed at Srinagar Airport on Wednesday. He said that no flight has been diverted.
The Director added that staffers present at Airport associated with Health, Municipality and other agencies are capable enough to screen the passengers and recommend quarantine for those who are infected with virus.
He said that it is the baby of the government to decide whether flights from Leh are allowed at Srinagar Airport or not.
An official said that a decision in this regard will be taken soon but as of now, flight from Leh has landed at Srinagar Airport.
Pertinently, 8 cases of Coronavirus have surface in Ladakh region so for while on Wednesday morning it was also confirmed that a solider from Indian Army has been tested positive in Ladakh. (KNT)
Pulwama, Mar 18: Government Forces fired warning shots during a cordon and search operation in a Pulwama village of South Kashmir.
Official sources told KNT that after receiving inputs about the presence of militants, Government Forces including soldiers from 50 Rastriya Rifles, 183 Battalion CRPF and SOG of Jammu Kashmir Police cordoned off Laroo village.
A thorough search operation was conducted during which soldiers fired a couple of shots in air that created panic in the area.
Sources added that there was no contact with the militants while search operation was still underway till the filing of this report. (KNT)
Turkey has confirmed its first novel coronavirus-related death as the number of cases in the country rose to 98.
“Today, I lost my first patient in our fight against coronavirus,” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca told a televised press conference on Tuesday, adding that the victim was an 89-year-old man who contracted the virus from an employee with connections to China.
The minister also said the number of cases had risen from 47 to 98.
“The big majority of those who tested positive are recovering,” Koca said.
Turkey has announced a series of preventive measures in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus, including travel restrictions on 20 countries and the closure of schools and universities.
Authorities on Monday suspended collective mosque prayers until further notice and ordered the closure of public spaces, including cinemas.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
“They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution,” Goulding said.
Ending speculations about deliberate genetic engineering of new coronavirus, scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, a non-profit research organization, have claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic is not from a lab-created virus but has a natural origin.
The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China last year and has since caused a large scale COVID-19 epidemic is the product of natural evolution.
The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered, according to findings published today in the journal Nature Medicine.
“By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,” said Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.
The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
On December 31 last year, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe illness, which was subsequently named SARS-CoV-2.
The coronavirus has now spread to more than 150 countries, infecting more than 184,000 and killing over 7,500 people.
Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and made the data available to researchers worldwide.
The resulting genomic sequence data has shown that Chinese authorities rapidly detected the epidemic and that the number of COVID-19 cases have been increasing because of human to human transmission after a single introduction into the human population.
Andersen and collaborators at several other research institutions used this sequencing data to explore the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing in on several tell-tale features of the virus.
The scientists analyzed the genetic template for spike proteins, armatures on the outside of the virus that it uses to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells.
This evidence for natural evolution was supported by data on SARS-CoV-2’s backbone – its overall molecular structure.
If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness.
But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins.
Josie Golding, PhD, epidemics lead at UK-based Wellcome Trust, said the findings by Andersen and his colleagues are “crucially important to bring an evidence-based view to the rumors that have been circulating about the origins of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19.”
“They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution,” Goulding said.
Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios.
In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans.
This is how previous coronavirus outbreaks have emerged, with humans contracting the virus after direct exposure to civets (SARS) and camels (MERS).
The researchers proposed bats as the most likely reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 as it is very similar to a bat coronavirus.
“There are no documented cases of direct bat-human transmission, however, suggesting that an intermediate host was likely involved between bats and humans,” the authors noted.
In this case, the current pandemic would probably have emerged rapidly as soon as humans were infected, as the virus would have already evolved the features that make it pathogenic and able to spread between people.
In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population.
If the SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in its current pathogenic form from an animal source, it raises the probability of future outbreaks, as the illness-causing strain of the virus could still be circulating in the animal population and might once again jump into humans.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
“If someone has come across the virus, it’s surely going to be on the mask.”
Wearing masks and gloves as a precaution against coronavirus is ineffective, unnecessary for the vast majority of people, and may even spread infections faster, experts said Tuesday.
While near-total lockdowns have been imposed in Italy, Spain and now France, the World Health Organization’s advice has remained unchanged since the start of the global outbreak: wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and keep your distance.
The WHO says it is advisable to wear a protective mask in public if you suspect you are infected or someone you are caring for is, in which case the advice is to stay home whenever possible.
“There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being infected and we’ve said the most important thing everyone can do is wash your hands, keep your hands away from your face, observe very precise hygiene,” said WHO’s emergencies director Mike Ryan.
The advice is all the more urgent given the WHO’s estimate that health workers worldwide will need at least 89 million masks every month to treat COVID-19 cases.
There are already shortages of masks for medical professionals around the world, a problem that could get worse as the pandemic drags on.
But the message about masks hasn’t reached everyone.
“I’m surprised to see through the window in my ministry lots of people in the street wearing masks when that doesn’t correspond to our recommendations,” French health minister Olivier Veran said Monday.
Mariam, 35, told AFP that she was wearing a mask because she has an elderly mother.
“Just in case,” said Mariam, who was also sporting latex gloves.
Mariam, who didn’t want to give her last name, she said she got her mask from “a friend’s mother who works in a hospital”.
As well as hoovering up stocks sorely needed by medical professionals, experts say masks can give people who wear them a false sense of security.
For example, many people who wear them don’t follow the official advice of washing their hands thoroughly first, ensuring it’s air tight and not to touch it once it’s on.
“People are always readjusting their masks and that has the potential to contaminate them,” said France’s head of health, Jerome Salomon.
“If someone has come across the virus, it’s surely going to be on the mask.”
Gloves, similarly, don’t greatly heighten protection and could even end up making you sick.
“If people cannot stop touching their face, gloves will not serve a purpose,” Amesh Adalja, from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told AFP.
One 2015 study in the American Journal of Infection control found that people touch their face on average 20 times an hour.
The novel coronavirus is transmitted via skin contact, transferring infected globules of mucus via the ears, eyes or nose.
“Gloves are not a substitute for washing your hands,” said Adalja, adding that surgical gloves should only be used in a medical setting.
Plus, said Veran: “If you’re wearing gloves you’re not washing your hands.” For one Paris resident, Oriane, 32, this is not a problem.
“I wash my gloves,” she said, gesturing to her bright blue surgical mitts.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
In wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the students from the Valley pursuing various courses in Bangladesh are struggling to return home.
The colleges in Bangladesh have been shut and all the students have been asked to go home. “But the students from Kashmir and other states of India are not allowed to return,” said Sheikh Uzair.
Greater Kashmir received email from distressed students saying they were going through a tough situation in Bangladesh.
“Considering the poor health infrastructure and high population density in Bangladesh, the students living there are at high risk of contracting coronavirus. Hostel messes are also closed in most of the colleges and students are forced to go out into crowded markets to fend for themselves,” Uzair said.
The Valley students have urged the J&K administration to intervene into the matter and ensure their safe return.
“Most of them studying in Bangladesh are medical students and are at a higher risk of contacting coronavirus because of the fact that their colleges and hostels are in the vicinities of unprepared hospitals with no proper healthcare facilities to contain the virus,” another student said.
The students demanded that they should be allowed to return homes after going through proper screening test.
“The Government of India, along with the Indian Embassy in Bangladesh should assist the students as soon as possible before the outbreak gets out of control,” the students said.
Bangalore University suspends class work in all colleges, hostel closed:
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bangalore University have ordered for suspension of class work in all the departments and its affiliated colleges besides shutting down hostel messes as well. The order came into effect from Monday. The decision has been taken as a preventive measure to control COVID-19.
In wake of this, Valley students who are pursuing different courses in the University said they have to spend nights on roads if they are vacated from university hostels.
“We are not given rooms on rent neither anyone agrees to accommodate us as PG,” said one of the students.
The students demanded that the university should keep hostels functional as all students cannot return home for just 15 days.
“Going home and returning to University within 15 days will be a risk and a costly affair as well. We appeal the J&K administration to take up matter with University administration and get us retained here,” the student said.
The University notice states that once the students return their campuses after 15 days, they will have to produce a medical certificate declaring they are free from coronavirus. “University will also screen the students on their return,” it reads.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Jammu Kashmir Apni Party President Syed Altaf Bukhari on Tuesday said that central government would come up with a concrete plan about domicile rights of the people of J&K within a week.
He said that during the meeting with PM Modi in New Delhi, the party delegation represented people in true sense and urged GoI to release all political detainees without any delay.
Bukhari who recently met PM Modi in New Delhi along with dozens of party leaders said during the meet his group discussed future roadmap of J&K. He said that during meetings with PM Modi and HM Amit Shah, he took up issues faced by people of J&K after August 5, 2019 when New Delhi scrapped special status of J&K.
“We tried to take up apprehensions of people of J&K regarding domicile, land and job rights.”
When asked further, he said we will share each and every detail with media at an appropriate time. He added during the meetings with union leadership, the delegation urged early release of all political leaders and activists.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
District Magistrate Ramban has banned public transport in the town till March 31 in the wake of coronavirus threat.
“No public transport including buses, mini-buses, tempos, tata sumos, innova, and tavera will operate in the district till March 31,” reads an order issued by DM Ramban Nazim Zia Khan.
The order further provides that all the markets including Batote, Ramban, Chanderkote, Banihal, Gool, Sangaldan, Rajgarh, Khari, Ukhral, and Ramsoo will operate as per the prescribed schedule i.e. from 7 AM to 10 AM and then 5 PM to 7 PM till March 31.
The DM Ramban has directed the hotel and restaurant owners to close their establishments. “However, in case of extreme urgency, the guests and the hotel owners have to get permission from the SHO concerned.”
“The guest has also to fill up self-declaration form which shall be provided by the hotel owners,” an advisory from the DM Ramban read.
The SSP RambanSub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Tehsildar and SHOs of Ramban will ensure implementation of the order.
“There is a need to put a stop on the travelers. We do not know who is carrying the virus,” said a senior official in the administration.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)