novel corona virus 2019

While the Indian government has shared information on precautions and preventive measures to tackle the Covid virus pandemic, there are specific actions that communities with residents living close to each other can take. Here is an FAQ to address questions from apartments, paying guest accommodations, and group housing quarters: What care should security personnel and housekeeping staff take? For the safety of security personnel who interact with a large number of visitors, apartments should ensure they wear masks and have access to soap/water and sanitiser solutions. Public health officials advise that the elevator should be operated only by one security…

India has seen 73 positive cases of novel Corona virus and one death thus far. The spread to many countries since its origin in China has prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to deem this a global pandemic.  Since the human transmission is the primary reason for the spread of Corona virus, cities have taken various containment measures. With the closure of schools, colleges and public events in some parts of the country, preventive measures are on in full swing. However, there is also plenty of misinformation out there on safeguards, cures and more. This has resulted in mass panic…

From six confirmed cases to 31 (as on March 6th), it has taken less than a week, even as suspected cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue to be reported across cities every day. How to contain the spread in a country of a billion plus, with obvious infrastructural and surveillance capacity challenges, is one of the greatest concerns in domestic public health circles today.  The Indian administration has taken a number of steps over the last one week to ensure that the spread of the disease can be arrested. Primary schools in the capital have been asked to…

Though initially declared a “state-specific health emergency’’ after three positive Coronavirus cases were reported in the state, the state’s health ministry, which withdrew the declaration a few days later, is reassuring people that there is no reason to panic. “The decision to withdraw the emergency call was taken since the situation is not alarming as of now,” said health minister K K Shailaja. “But the possibility of community spread of the virus is far from over”. When the country’s first three cases which tested positive for the new virus were reported from Kerala, the state’s public health machinery acted quickly…

On February 10th, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, issued a suo moto statement in the Lok Sabha on the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus Disease in China and some other countries, and the subsequent actions taken by the Government of India. Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that cause illness in humans and animals. Rarely, animal corona viruses can evolve and infect people, and then spread between people as has been seen with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2014. China reported an outbreak of Novel…

What is the Corona Virus? Corona viruses have attracted attention for causing epidemics in the 21st century. However, their existence goes much further back in time. Human CoV (HCoV) in particular has been infamous for causing epidemics better known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (2003, Guangdong, China) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (2012, Saudi Arabia). The novel Corona Virus (nCoV 2019), hitting current headlines, surfaced on December 31 2019 in Wuhan, China.  Baseline analysis has revealed that nCoV 2019 has some similarities (in amino acid structure) to SARS CoV.  This is a head start to understand the virus but active…