vaccination drive bangalore

Festive rules revised On Thursday, many Ganesha Utsava Mandals held a protest with vehicle-mounted idols, at the BBMP head office. The BBMP’s order on just one public installation per ward was widely opposed. After outcry from pro-Hindu groups over restrictions in festivities, BBMP withdrew its guidelines and agreed to permit festivities over five days, not three as the police had advised earlier. Moreover, reversing the earlier ban, idols can now be immersed in some lakes where it’s customary. Only one public installation per ward is permitted, but temples and private religious institutions can install idols following COVID-appropriate behaviour. Organisers are…

75% have COVID antibodies: Serosurvey Preliminary results of a serosurvey conducted by civic authorities in early August show that more than 75% of the sample population had developed antibodies. The survey was conducted among 2,000 Bengalureans, of whom half were vaccinated and half weren't. Out of 1,800 people, more than 1,400 had antibodies. The results of the remaining 200 people are still being tabulated. The participants included 30% under the age of 18, 50% aged 18-44 years, and 20% aged above 45. They were from various socio-economic groups. The findings seem to suggest that vaccines are creating an appropriate antibody…

Testing sewage to detect clusters Karnataka will begin testing sewage water to identify potential coronavirus clusters and mutant variants of the virus. The surveillance teams which will be in 45 wards, will cover over 75% of 90 lakh residents by generating over 90 data points per week, the Urban Development Department reportedly revealed. This could be a cost-effective early warning system to assess the increase in cases before the number of official cases actually go up. Officials hope it will avoid city-wide lockdowns by focusing on micro-containment zones. Samples would be pulled from 45 wards every day for the next…

Highest mortality among big cities Bengaluru recorded the highest 28-day COVID mortality with a Moving Growth Rate (MGR) of 82% during the lockdown from April 14 to May 12, according to a study by Jeevan Rakshe, conducted with technical support from the Public Health Foundation of India. The city accounted for 24% of the 17,000 deaths recorded in the six biggest Indian cities. Bengaluru was only behind Delhi, which recorded over 50% of the deaths. In terms of MGR, the national capital was second with 76%. Hence, the doubling period for death numbers is shorter than other mega cities. In…

Cases cross one million On Thursday, the city crossed the one million mark in cumulative COVID-19 infections. About 25% of the cases were reported in the past 13 days alone, while 30% of the total deaths in Bengaluru were between May 1 and 13. The daily positivity rate stands at 27.6 %. Since the beginning of May, there were 2,153 deaths, compared to 1,907 in April. There are 300-plus deaths every day. However, as per projections, the number of cases will gradually decline by the end of May. Bengaluru Urban’s testing numbers too have declined since April 20. Official data…

With the rising number of COVID cases in Karnataka crossing over 6,000 per day, of which over 4,000 cases per day are in Bengaluru itself, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has been organising a series of meetings with various Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) to seek support in contact tracing and improving the reach of administering COVID vaccines. On April 1, the central government extended vaccination for people above 45 years, irrespective of whether they have co-morbidities.  On April 2, during an interaction with the BBMP Chief Commissioner and Commissioner for Health, an overwhelming request by the RWAs was to conduct vaccination…

NIMHANS finds 34 lineages of virus The genomic sequencing of 197 COVID-19 samples from foreign fliers showed up 34 different lineages of the original Sars-CoV-2. This is up from the seven found in May 2020, but a majority of viruses come from a lineage characterised by different mutations, which allow the virus to evade a response from the human immune system. At the same time, scientists found that there is no evidence to suggest that the much-feared UK variant of the virus was present in Karnataka until the arrival of foreign fliers in the third week of December. The finding…

Six COVID clusters The number of COVID-19 clusters in the city rose from three to six after the detection of 19 cases -- two of them in educational institutions -- in Yelahanka on Friday. Agragami College, Sambhram Academy of Management Studies and Purva Venezia apartments are the three new clusters. Earlier, the city's third cluster was detected when 26 persons in SJR Watermark Apartment in Ambalipura, Bellandur ward, were found Covid positive. They are all asymptomatic and under home quarantine. The UK, South Africa or Brazil variants of the coronavirus have not been found in the cluster at Manjushree Nursing…

COVID vaccination underway Six health facilities in the city are primed for the COVID vaccination programme, inaugurated nation-wide by the Prime Minister today (January 16). The Victoria Hospital campus has 11 vaccination sites, St John’s Hospital nine, KC General Hospital three and CV Raman Hospital one. The other two are Jayanagar General Hospital and Mallasandra primary health centre. In all, there are 243 centres across the State where the initial phase of vaccinating healthcare workers will be carried out over a week. The chosen hospitals have also readied a separate ward to observe and treat severe allergic reactions, if any,…

Pic courtesy: facebook.com/MRCampaignKA In mid-January 2017, social media groups in Bengaluru buzzed with posts of confused parents who sought to know whether they should vaccinate their child in school - the schools were asking their consent to vaccinate the children against Measles and Rubella. This is a part of Union government’s National Health Mission initiative to vaccinate children across India against commonly occurring diseases among children - Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP). On February 7th, 2017, the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Karnataka launched a mass measles and rubella vaccination campaign to immunise all children in the State aged between…