India’s indigenous vaccine gets nod for human trials
AIIMS Ethics Committee has given a go-ahead to India’s indigenous vaccine, COVAXIN, for conducting human trials. In Stage I, the vaccine will be tested on 375 volunteers, of which 100 will be from AIIMS – Delhi, one of the twelve sites shortlisted by ICMR for conducting Stage I and Stage II human trials of COVAXIN.
Volunteers with good health, no co-morbidities and no COVID-19 history, aged more than 18 years and less than 55 years will only be eligible for the clinical trials, as per the guidelines of AIIMS Ethics Committee.
The vaccine has been developed by Bharat Biotech in joint collaboration with ICMR’s National Institute of Virology, Pune.
Anybody willing to participate in the trial can send an email to Ctaiims.covid19@gmail.com or an SMS to or call on 7428847499.
Source: Livemint
Nine civic hospitals in Mumbai to focus on monsoon-related illnesses
In a move that has pleased locals immensely, 9 out of 16 municipality hospitals will be designated as ‘non-COVID’ hospitals and will focus on monsoon-related illnesses, which are responsible for claiming thousands of lives each season. The three big super specialty hospitals – KEM , Sion and Cooper Hospitals – will continue to attend to both COVID and non-COVID cases.
The corporation might also decide on opening up primary health clinics and dispensaries for non-COVID cases in the city. With heavy rains, the municipality is expecting an increase in cases of dengue, malaria, jaundice and leptospirosis.
Source: The Times of India
India’s first contactless parking becomes operational in Hyderabad
Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport has become the first international airport in the country to introduce 100 per cent contactless mechanism for parking. The users will not have to interact any more with parking supervisors or wait in queues to park their vehicles.
The airport is utilizing FASTag technology for providing contactless parking system. The user has to affix the FASTag on the windscreen, so that the airport system can read the tag automatically and give the user a go ahead. The user’s detail will be saved in a local database along with a timestamp and while exiting, a fee will be deducted automatically from the prepaid account.
The new system has been introduced in view of the ongoing pandemic, which brought the principle of social distancing to the forefront.
Source: Times Now
Only three hours of rain washes away Delhi house
The video of a house in Anna Nagar near ITO getting caved in due to heavy rainfall went viral on social media. On the morning of July 19th, the capital received heavy rainfall for about three hours, creating a problem of waterlogging in several areas of the capital. The video that made the rounds on social media was of slums at Anna Nagar near ITO in Delhi. It showed the house getting completely washed away with the flood waters.
However, no casualty has been reported so far, as no one was present in the house during the incident.
Source: India Today
Gurugram puts special focus and suggests early treatment for obese patients
As per the Health Department of Gurugram district, 80% of the total COVID positive cases in the district are also suffering from other non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, obesity etc.
Surprisingly, the data also revealed that almost 90% of the patients on ventilator support in the district are obese, whereas, 60% of COVID-19 deaths have a diabetic history. The health department has also shared that patients with co-morbidities are 10 times more vulnerable then healthy persons to the infection.
Officials are particularly worried about the high fatality rate amongst obese patients and have hence suggested starting treatment early in case of such patients.
Source: The Times of India
Compiled by Rishabh Shrivastava