Students from various organisation protest over the NEET-UG and UGC-NET examinations issue outside Ministry of Education in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

NEET-PG postponed, CBI to probe NEET-UG allegations, NTA chief removed, as panel set up for agency overhaul

With questions being raised about the “integrity of certain competitive examinations”, the Health Ministry announced the postponement of the NEET-PG entrance examination “as a precautionary measure”, just hours before it was due to be held on June 23 morning. This followed on the heels of decision to remove Subodh Kumar Singh from his position as Director-General of the National Testing Agency, which has come under fire for an alleged paper leak and irregularities in the NEET-UG examination, and other examinations which it conducts.

1,563 candidates to retake NEET-UG on June 23

The retest is being conducted after the National Testing Agency (NTA) cancelled the scorecards of 1,563 students who were granted compensatory marks for loss of time due to a delay in six centres in Meghalaya, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Chandigarh.

Six arrested in Jharkhand in NEET case; Sanjeev Mukhiya kingpin, says Economic Offences Unit

Investigation into the NEET paper leak case led the Bihar Police to neighbouring Jharkhand where police arrested six people from Deoghar on Friday night. A team led by officials of the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) brought the six to Patna for questioning. Deoghar Police said five Nalanda residents Paramjit Singh, Baldev Kumar, Prashant Kumar, Ajit Kumar, Rajiv Kumar, and one Panku Kumar, were arrested from a house near AIIMS-Deoghar.

Erred in not crediting ICMR as co-inventor of Covaxin, says Bharat Biotech

Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) and manufacturer of Covaxin, India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, said it had made an “inadvertent mistake” in not including scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as ‘co-inventors’ in patent applications filed in India and abroad to protect the intellectual property rights around the vaccine. It would include their names in fresh filings for patent purposes, it said in a statement late on Saturday.

BSF to recalibrate deployment along Pakistan border in Jammu in the wake of terror strikes

The Border Security Force (BSF) is likely to “recalibrate deployment” along the Pakistan border in Jammu, in the wake of at least four terror strikes in the past few weeks .In just four days, between June 9 and June 12, ten people — including a jawan from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — were killed in militant attacks in the Reasi, Doda, and Kathua districts.

PM Modi likely to skip SCO summit in Kazakhstan in July; Putin, Xi, Sharif may attend

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to skip the Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to be held in Kazakhstan next month, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is expected to officiate in his place. According to sources aware of the decision, Mr. Modi has decided not to travel to Astana for the summit to be held on July 3-4, although he had earlier confirmed his presence, and an advance security team had conducted its reconnaissance survey there. 

Hinduja family ‘appalled’ by jail term order; files appeal in higher court

Britain’s wealthiest family, the Hindujas, have said they were “appalled” by a Swiss court’s ruling of jail terms for some members and have filed an appeal in a higher court challenging the verdict finding them guilty of exploiting vulnerable domestic workers from India at their villa in Geneva. In a statement issued on behalf of the family on Friday, lawyers from Switzerland stressed their clients – Prakash and Kamal Hinduja, both in their 70s and their son Ajay and his wife Namrata – had been acquitted of all human trafficking charges.

ICC T20 World Cup 2024: Hardik, Kuldeep sparkle as India outclass Bangladesh by 50 runs, move closer to semis

Hardik Pandya produced an all-round show while Kuldeep Yadav foxed Bangladesh batters with his guile as India all but assured themselves of a semifinals berth through a dominant 50-run victory in their second Super 8 game of the T20 World Cup here on Saturday.

Euro 2024: Schick saves Czech Republic in draw against gutsy Georgia

Patrik Schick chested home to earn the Czech Republic a 1-1 draw against debutants Georgia on June 22 in an entertaining match, but it leaves both teams in a tricky spot in Euro 2024 Group F. 

Archery World Cup Stage 3 | Indian women trio claim gold

The Indian trio of V. Jyothi Surekha, Parneet Kaur and Aditi Swami claimed its third consecutive compound women’s team gold medal of the season in the Archery World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya, Turkey, on Saturday.

The world’s second-biggest economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

China’s fiscal revenue in the first quarter fell 2.3% from a year earlier, as some special factors including previous tax cut policies weighed, the Finance Ministry said on April 22.

The world’s second-biggest economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, data showed last week, offering some relief to officials, but March indicators showed domestic demand remains frail. The property downturn continues to hurt local governments’ finance and fiscal capabilities, analysts said.

China’s tax revenue dropped 4.9% to 4.9 trillion yuan ($676.48 billion) in the first three months, but revenue from cultural, tourism and advanced manufacturing industries grew fast, Wang Dongwei, vice finance minister, told a press conference in Beijing on April 22.

Excluding the influence of special factors such as a high base and tax cut policies of 2023, China’s fiscal revenue grew about 2.2% in the first quarter, he added.

Fiscal expenditures grew 2.9% on year to nearly 7 trillion yuan in the first three months, according to Mr. Wang, slowing significantly from 6.7% growth seen in the first two months.

Responding to a question about the slow issuance of local government special bonds in January-March, Wang Jianfan, an official at the Ministry said that issuance was related to funding needs of local projects, seasonal influence on construction conditions and interest rates in the bond market.

In response to the impact of Covid previously, the Ministry also stepped up such bond issuance volume at the beginning of each year, he said, indicating this had created a high base.

The Finance Ministry will support technology-led industrial innovation with “full support” and shore up technology innovation and manufacturing development with tax and fee cut policies, Mr. Wang said.

Amid tepid domestic demand and a property crisis, Beijing has turned to investing in high-tech manufacturing to lift the economy this year.

“We will strengthen macro control, focus on expanding domestic demand, cultivate and develop new growth drivers and prevent and defuse risks to improve the quality and efficiency of fiscal policies and enhance economic recovery,” he said.

Funds from the trillion yuan of sovereign bonds issued last year had been given to local governments by the end of February, the Vice-Minister said. In particular, spending on disaster prevention and emergency management out of the funds grew by 53.4% in the first quarter.

In recent days, floods have swamped a handful of cities in southern China’s densely populated Pearl River Delta following record-breaking rains.

“In 2020, deaths around the world rose by 10.8% compared to 2019, and in 2021, they rose by 7.5% relative to 2020.”
| Photo Credit: Reuters

COVID-19 (coronavirus) replaced stroke to become the second-leading cause of death globally in 2021, causing 94 deaths per one lakh population and slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years, an international research published in The Lancet journal has found.

“Disrupting more than three decades of consistent improvements in life expectancy and deaths, COVID-19 reversed this long-standing progress to emerge as “one of the most defining global health events of recent history,” researchers said.

“In 2020, deaths around the world rose by 10.8% compared to 2019, and in 2021, they rose by 7.5% relative to 2020. Death rates too followed a similar trend, rising by 8.1% in 2020 and an additional 5.2% in 2021,” the study estimated.

“Globally, COVID-19 and related deaths were responsible for slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021, even as reduced deaths from infections, stroke, and of newborns, among others, had helped steadily enhance life expectancy between 1990 and 2019,” the researchers found.

“India lost 1.9 years of life expectancy due to COVID-19, resulting in a net gain of 7.9 years of life expectancy between 1990 and 2021,” the study showed. “COVID-19 had a pronounced influence on the reduction in global life expectancy that occurred,” the authors wrote.

The researchers forming the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Causes of Death Collaborators estimated mortality and years of life lost from 288 causes of death across 204 countries and territories for every year from 1990 until 2021. Region-wise, death rates from COVID-19 were the highest in the sub-Saharan Africa.

“In Latin America and the Caribbean, it was at 271 per one lakh population and almost 200 deaths per one lakh population, respectively. The rate was the lowest in southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania at around 23 deaths per one lakh population,” the researchers estimated.

“The impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy was found to be wide-ranging in severity, with Andean Latin America seeing a loss of 4.9 years and the southern sub-Saharan Africa seeing a reduction of 3.4 years, to the east Asia, which witnessed almost no change,” they said in the study.

“The leading cause of death worldwide in 2021 continues to be ischaemic heart disease, as was the case in 2019 and 1990,” the researchers found. The disease is caused by a reduced blood flow to a certain body part due to clotting or constricting blood vessels.

Stroke, at the third position amongst the top five causes of death, was found to be followed by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at fourth, and other pandemic-related mortality at fifth. COPD is a lung condition usually seen to affect heavy smokers.

The GBD study, providing “latest comprehensive estimates of cause-specific mortality,” gives insights about the global landscape of disease before and during the first two years of the pandemic, revealing changes in disease-burden patterns that followed, according to the researchers, coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, U.S.

File photo used for representational purpose only.

Children infected with the Omicron variant remain infectious for three days on average after testing positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a study.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) and Stanford University in the U.S. noted that school policies that require students with COVID-19 to stay out of the classroom for five days are more than sufficient.

“We are basically saying five days is more than sufficient; public health and education leaders may consider shorter durations,” said study co-author Neeraj Sood, Director of the COVID-19 Initiative and a senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, found that the median time of infectivity was three days, with 18.4% and 3.9% of children still infectious on day five and day 10, respectively.

The researchers also found no association between how long children were infectious and whether they were vaccinated, suggesting return-to-school policies may not need discriminate by vaccine or booster status.

The study seeks to inform policymakers who grapple with how long children must isolate when they contract COVID-19. Such self-isolation policies, aimed at halting the spread of the virus, can negatively interrupt children’s education.

“We want to protect other children in the school who could potentially get infected, but at the same time, we don’t want to disrupt education for the child who is infected, given the amount of disruption that’s already happened,” said Mr. Sood.

“The duration of infectivity is an important parametre into figuring out what the optimal duration of self-isolation should be,” he added.

The researchers partnered with a virus testing company and examined nasal swabs from 76 children in Los Angeles County who were between the ages of seven and 18 and tested positive for COVID-19.

Survey participants provided samples during five home visits over a 10-day period and samples were examined in a lab to find evidence of cell death, a sign of infectivity. All participants were infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

“We wanted to capture how infectivity changed over the 10-day window,” said study lead author Nikhilesh Kumar, a Doctor of Medicine student at the USC Keck School of Medicine.

The findings are consistent with previous research on adults who contracted the Omicron variant, which showed no association between vaccination status and time of infectivity.

“That research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed adults with Omicron were infected for a slightly longer duration, with a median time of five days,” the authors noted.

The team called for further research so that policymakers can consider adjusting the time students must stay out of the classroom.

A UK health expert’s warning that a new pathogen could cause a pandemic as deadly as the Spanish Flu – which killed 50 million people – has sent alarm bells ringing in a world that is yet to completely emerge from what it hoped was a once-in-a-lifetime event — Covid-19

Esteemed Company

Disease X is on the list of “priority diseases” on the WHO website, a roll call that also includes the Ebola virus disease, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Nipah and Zika. These are all diseases that have a high fatality rate. The list was first published in 2017. 

What Is Disease X 

According to the WHO website, Disease X “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease”. The pathogen could be a virus, a bacterium or a fungus. 

In essence then, it serves as a warning that the next pandemic could be lurking around the corner and it is very difficult to predict what could cause it. It also helps direct research and investment towards emerging diseases and is meant to aid in the quick development of vaccines.

“Targeting priority pathogens and virus families for research and development of countermeasures is essential for a fast and effective epidemic and pandemic response. Without significant R&D investments prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, it would not have been possible to have safe and effective vaccines developed in record time,” a release quoted Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, as saying.

What The Expert Said

In an interview to the Daily Mail, Kate Bingham, who served as the chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce from May to December 2020, said the new virus could have a similar impact to the devastating Spanish Flu of 1919-1920.

 “Let me put it this way: the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I. Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist,” she said. 

“In a sense, we got lucky with Covid-19, despite the fact that it caused 20 million or more deaths across the world. The point is that the vast majority of people infected with the virus managed to recover… Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola. Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick,” Ms Bingham told the Daily Mail.

Strategy

The WHO’s R&D Blueprint is a global strategy and preparedness plan that allows the rapid activation of research and development activities during epidemics. It is meant to to fast-track the availability of effective tests, vaccines and medicines that can be used to save lives and avert large-scale crises, according to the WHO website.

For each disease an R&D roadmap is created, followed by target product profiles. The roadmap is then used to guide the response to outbreaks in both urgent action and in developing ways to improve the global response for future epidemics.

Pandemics Increasing?

While the origins of Covid-19 aren’t 100% clear, it is believed to be a zoonotic disease which first infected a human in Wuhan, China, through a bat or some other animal. 

As per the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the United States, the potential for diseases to spread and escalate into epidemics or pandemics is increasing. The reasons cited for this include globalisation and the increased flow of humans and goods to all parts of the world.

The other reasons include urbanisation and the fact that, in many parts of the world, people are clustered together and living in overcrowded and unhygienic environments in which infectious diseases can thrive. The destruction of forests is also seen as a big danger.

The NCBI cites climate change, increased human-animal contact, and a shortage of health workers as the other reasons. The last of these is important because trained health workers can help identify and contain diseases before they spread, but they are usually lacking in places where such epidemics originate.

Singapore:

A 64-year-old Singaporean of Indian origin was sentenced to two weeks’ jail on Monday on pleading guilty to one count of breaching a COVID-19 regulation by failing to wear a mask that covered his nose and mouth while outside his home in 2021. Despite knowing that he had just tested positive for COVID-19, Tamilselvam Ramaiya deliberately coughed at his colleagues, lowering his mask to do so on one occasion.

Another two charges were taken into consideration during sentencing, according to a Channel News Asia report.

The court heard that Tamilselvam was working as a cleaner for Leong Hup Singapore at the time.

After reporting for work at 6 Senoko Way on the morning of Oct 18, 2021, he told the assistant logistics manager that he was feeling unwell. He was told to take an antigen rapid test (ART).

A colleague administered the test on Tamilselvam, and he tested positive for COVID-19.

Given the result, he was instructed to return home and to tell the assistant logistics manager about the result.

The assistant logistics manager, who learnt of the positive test result from someone else, told his other colleagues about it.

However, Tamilselvam did not head home immediately. Instead, he went to the company’s logistics office to inform the assistant logistics manager about his COVID-19 test result.

Tamilselvam entered the office with a company driver who did not know about the positive test result.

The first victim, a 40-year-old logistics supervisor, told the driver not to go near Tamilselvam. The supervisor also asked Tamilselvam to leave the office and made a gesture mimicking kicking him out.

Tamilselvam walked to the door but turned back to cough twice into the office with his mask on.

The supervisor closed the office door, but Tamilselvam opened it. He lowered his mask to uncover his nose and mouth and coughed into the office a third time before leaving.

The act was captured on the closed-circuit television camera in the enclosed air-conditioned office.

While Tamilselvam was leaving, he passed by a window with a 56-year-old clerk on the other side of the glass in the logistics office.

He opened the window, coughed in her direction with his mask on, and said “kena COVID, kena COVID”, using the Malay word “kena” to describe someone on the receiving end.

The colleagues who were coughed at were alarmed as they knew Tamilselvam had tested positive for COVID-19. The clerk was a dialysis patient who suffered from cardiac and renal issues and she administered an ART on herself after being coughed at.

None of them contracted COVID-19 from the incident.

After this, Tamilselvam went to a polyclinic where he was given another swab test and a three-day medical certificate. He was also told to quarantine himself at home.

The assistant logistics manager of the company lodged a police report over the incident.

During investigations, Tamilselvam said he had coughed at his colleagues as “a joke”. He said he did not treat his positive result seriously and visited the polyclinic to confirm if he had contracted COVID-19.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana said it was “no laughing matter” and that Tamilselvam had disobeyed express instructions to leave the premises, returning instead to cough deliberately at his colleagues.

She asked for three to four weeks’ jail, saying his actions came at a time when Singapore was experiencing a fresh surge of COVID-19 cases that led to the tightening of COVID-19 restrictions.

For flouting a COVID-19 regulation, he could have been jailed for up to six months, fined up to SGD10,000, or both.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)