The connection between bats and evil spirits is, unfortunately, a deep, cross-cultural myth that refuses to die, but did you know there is another, more fun spirit they are intricately associated with? Agave plants, the source of tequila and mezcal, depend on bats, especially the Mexican long-nosed bat, for pollination and seed dispersal, says bat researcher Aditya Srinivasulu.

“I work on bats because I grew up surrounded by all things bat (his parents are bat researchers too), and I love them. But they also offer important ecosystem services,” he says, over a Zoom call from Hyderabad, where he is based. The biggest services bats provide to the ecosystem are through their diet, Aditya explains. “Fruit-eaters disperse seeds by excreting them in various places, nectar-eaters pollinate flowers, insect-eaters suppress insect populations, and carnivorous bats help keep rodent populations in check.

Equally importantly, bats serve as ecological indicators. “A good diversity of bats means that you have a healthy ecosystem,” he says, pointing out that they are also just very unique and cool. “They’re the only mammals that can truly fly, they’re super diverse (nearly one-fifth of all mammal species), and have nearly 60 million years of evolution behind incredible adaptations ranging from long tongues for nectar-feeding to complicated echolocation to highly efficient flight.”

However, despite their importance, knowledge about bats remains sparse and fragmented, “across individual papers, unpublished archives, and unevenly sampled regions,” he says. One aspect of these animals that we know especially little about is echolocation, a biological sonar system in which animals, such as bats, dolphins, and some birds, interpret the returning echoes of their emitted sounds to navigate their environment.

“Bats aren’t actually blind. Fruit-eaters can see extremely well, and even insect-eaters have better eyesight than us – they’re just so much better at echolocation,” says the Aditya, who recently led a study cataloguing echolocation data for 86 species of bats, approximately 60% of all South Asian bats known to use echolocation, the results of which were recently published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

In the study, Aditya and his co-authors, Chelmala Srinivasulu, Bhargavi Srinivasulu, Deepa Senapathi, and Manuela González-Suárez, performed a meta-analysis of echolocation calls described in 35 research papers and, based on around 6,000 archival recordings, created the first regional database of calls of South Asian bat species.

“Then we mapped this knowledge and found that there are many places where lots of species are known to exist, but we know nothing about their calls, including in ‘biodiversity hotspots’ like the Western Ghats and highland Sri Lanka, Northeast India, and in the Eastern Ghats,” Aditya says.

Genesis

Bats have been studied in the South Asian region for a long time, “effectively since the time of (Carl) Linnaeus described bats…some of the specimens he was seeing were from here,” says Aditya. Conservation, however, is a different story. “There is a lot of work to be done in bat conservation, because until very recently, a lot of bat species were classified as vermin (Under India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, animals classified as vermin can be legally hunted).”

Then, in the ‘90s, two bat species, Salim Ali’s fruit bat and Wroughton’s free-tailed bat, were classified as Schedule 1 species, meaning they are given the highest level of protection under wildlife laws. “Now, I think we have a total of six species in Schedule 1 and the rest of the bat species aren’t classified as vermin anymore. In that sense, there is progress, but it is recent,” he says, which, in turn, means there is still a lot of work to be done in bat conservation.

Aditya, who recently received his PhD from the University of Reading (UK), was trying to better understand bats in South Asia as part of his doctoral research, which led to this paper. “The main theme of my PhD was to explore how much (and how little) we know about bats in South Asia,” says Aditya. His study focused on their geographic distribution and how ecological disturbances caused by human activities, including climate change and habitat destruction, are affecting them.

Yet another crucial aspect of his study was to better understand what Aditya refers to as the functional traits of bats. These are traits, he says, that do not just describe how a species looks and behaves, but more crucially, how it actually interfaces with its habitat.

Echolocation, for example, is an important functional trait. “For instance, a bat calling using high-pitched and short calls (which dissipate very quickly in the air) will have to fly fast and low near foliage to make sure it doesn’t lose ‘sight’ of where it’s going. “Just from two call traits (how high and how short the call is), we’ve now inferred how high and fast the bat can fly, where it might prefer to fly, and also what it might eat,” he says.

Conservation and knowledge

Not only do studies on functional traits, like Aditya’s, reveal more about the biology of bats, but they could also be critical tools in our conservation efforts. “From the lens of conservation, this allows scientists to observe nature without disturbing it and, importantly, opens up the possibility of monitoring bat species across various locations without the need for collecting, handling, and stressing the animals out,” he says.

Given that over a third of bats worldwide are threatened, “I think building our knowledge while also minimising our impact on nature is the way forward to effectively conserving them.“

In Aditya’s opinion, the more we learn about bats, the less we fear them, especially considering we already have a rather chequered relationship with these animals. “South Asia’s culture is incredibly complex and historic, and this relates to our relationship with bats too. Ranging from fear and superstition to worship in some places, to subsistence on bats as the only source of food, there’s a complicated and diverse relationship between people and bats in this region.”

Throw in the fact that bats are also associated with zoonotic diseases like rabies, COVID-19, and Nipah, and we see bats almost exclusively through a prism of fear.

Aditya understands why we fear them, but believes it is important we remember that they are just wild animals like any other: the less we fear them, the better we will get at protecting them. “We are sharing the same space and the same planet – it’s never us vs them. Our job is to make sure we don’t hurt them and to learn as much about them as we can, because I believe our relationship with nature is extremely integral to cultural heritage.”

New Delhi:

Women might be at a 31 per cent higher risk of developing long Covid compared to men, with those aged 40-55 years likely to be at most risk, a study has found.

Among the women aged 40-55 years, the risk of long Covid was found to be even higher — 42 per cent in menopausal women and 45 per cent in non-menopausal women — the results of the ‘RECOVER’ trial, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open showed.

Long Covid is estimated to affect about a third of those once infected with Covid-19, with symptoms, such as fatigue and brain fog, persisting well beyond the acute recovery period. The condition, including its causes and treatments, continues to be studied around the world.

Researchers, led by those at The University of Texas, US, followed more than 12,200 people (73 per cent of women), who reported their symptoms while responding to questionnaires at their first study visit at least six months after infection. The participants were enrolled between October 2021, and July 2024.

The trial showed that all women, except those aged 18-39 years, had a 31 per cent higher risk of long Covid — regardless of race, ethnicity, Covid variant and severity of the viral infection.

The study helps identify risk factors for long Covid critical for preventing and treating the often debilitating disease, according to lead researcher Thomas Patterson, a professor of medicine and chief of the division of infectious diseases, school of medicine, The University of Texas.

The researchers added that biological processes contributing to sex-specific differences of long Covid need to be identified that can help develop targeted drugs and improve management of the condition.

“These findings show that patients and health care teams should consider the differences in long COVID risk as it relates to sex assigned at birth,” corresponding author Dimpy Shah, an assistant professor of population health sciences at The University of Texas, said.

“Understanding these differences can help us recognise and treat patients with long Covid more effectively,” Shah said.

While previous studies have shown women to have a tendency for post-viral and autoimmune conditions, it is not clear if the same is true for long Covid, especially within different age groups, the researchers said.

“This study gives us new knowledge and builds on other studies that also looked at sex assigned at birth and long Covid,” Shah said.

“Because of the size of the RECOVER study and the diversity of participants, we had a special opportunity to look at sex assigned at birth while also considering things like vaccination status, autoimmune disease, diabetes, BMI and Covid variant,” the corresponding author said.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

While it’s one thing to acknowledge the limits to our knowledge of the microbial soup we live in, more recent attention has focused on how we might systematically approach future pandemic risks.

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously talked about “known knowns” (things we know we know), “known unknowns” (things we know we don’t know), and “unknown unknowns” (the things we don’t know we don’t know).

Although this may have been controversial in its original context of weapons of mass destruction, it provides a way to think about how we might approach future pandemic threats.

Influenza: a ‘known known’

Influenza is largely a known entity; we essentially have a minor pandemic every winter with small changes in the virus each year. But more major changes can also occur, resulting in spread through populations with little pre-existing immunity. We saw this most recently in 2009 with the swine flu pandemic.

However, there’s a lot we don’t understand about what drives influenza mutations, how these interact with population-level immunity, and how best to make predictions about transmission, severity and impact each year.

The current H5N1 subtype of avian influenza (“bird flu”) has spread widely around the world. It has led to the deaths of many millions of birds and spread to several mammalian species including cows in the United States and marine mammals in South America.

Human cases have been reported in people who have had close contact with infected animals, but fortunately there’s currently no sustained spread between people.

While detecting influenza in animals is a huge task in a large country such as Australia, there are systems in place to detect and respond to bird flu in wildlife and production animals.

It’s inevitable there will be more influenza pandemics in the future. But it isn’t always the one we are worried about.

Attention has been focused on avian influenza since 1997 when an outbreak in birds in Hong Kong caused severe disease in humans. However the subsequent pandemic in 2009 originated in pigs in central Mexico.

Coronaviruses: an ‘unknown known’

Although Rumsfeld didn’t talk about “unknown knowns”, coronaviruses would be appropriate for this category. We knew more about coronaviruses than most people might have thought before the COVID pandemic.  

We’d had experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) causing large outbreaks. Both are caused by viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID. While these might have faded from public consciousness before COVID, coronaviruses were listed in the 2015 WHO list of diseases with pandemic potential.

Previous research into the earlier coronaviruses proved vital in allowing COVID-19 vaccines to be developed rapidly. For example, the Oxford group’s initial work on a MERS vaccine was key to the development of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Similarly, previous research into the structure of the spike protein – a protein on the surface of coronaviruses that allows it to attach to our cells – was helpful in developing mRNA vaccines for COVID.

It would seem likely there will be further coronavirus pandemics in the future. And even if they don’t occur at the scale of COVID, the impacts can be significant. For example, when MERS spread to South Korea in 2015, it only caused 186 cases over two months, but the cost of controlling it was estimated at US$8 billion (A$11.6 billion).

The 25 viral families: an approach to ‘known unknowns’

Attention has now turned to the known unknowns. There are about 120 viruses from 25 families that are known to cause human disease. Members of each viral family share common properties and our immune systems respond to them in similar ways.

An example is the flavivirus family, of which the best-known members are yellow fever virus and dengue fever virus. This family also includes several other important viruses, such as Zika virus (which can cause birth defects when pregnant women are infected) and West Nile virus (which causes encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain).

The WHO’s blueprint for epidemics aims to consider threats from different classes of viruses and bacteria. It looks at individual pathogens as examples from each category to expand our understanding systematically.

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has taken this a step further, preparing vaccines and therapies for a list of prototype pathogens from key virus families. The goal is to be able to adapt this knowledge to new vaccines and treatments if a pandemic were to arise from a closely related virus.

Pathogen X, the ‘unknown unknown’

There are also the unknown unknowns, or “disease X” – an unknown pathogen with the potential to trigger a severe global epidemic. To prepare for this, we need to adopt new forms of surveillance specifically looking at where new pathogens could emerge.

In recent years, there’s been an increasing recognition that we need to take a broader view of health beyond only thinking about human health, but also animals and the environment. This concept is known as “One Health” and considers issues such as climate change, intensive agricultural practices, trade in exotic animals, increased human encroachment into wildlife habitats, changing international travel, and urbanisation.

This has implications not only for where to look for new infectious diseases but also for how we can reduce the risk of “spillover” from animals to humans. This might include targeted testing of animals and people who work closely with animals. Currently, testing is mainly directed towards known viruses, but new technologies can look for as yet unknown viruses in patients with symptoms consistent with new infections.

We live in a vast world of potential microbiological threats. While influenza and coronaviruses have a track record of causing past pandemics, a longer list of new pathogens could still cause outbreaks with significant consequences.

Continued surveillance for new pathogens, improving our understanding of important virus families, and developing policies to reduce the risk of spillover will all be important for reducing the risk of future pandemics.

This article is part of a series on the next pandemic.

Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Monash University 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bengaluru:

The MUDA scam that had been occupying headlines in Karnataka has been pushed aside by a new scam – alleged misappropriation of funds to the tune of crores meant to fight Covid during the BJP rule in the state led by then Chief Minister BS Yeddiyurappa – raising allegations of tit-for-tat scams. A preliminary report on the matter by Justice John Michael  D’Cunha was discussed by the cabinet today, which apparently mentioned many other irregularities.

Of these, sources said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made three crucial observations at the meeting. 

He said the judge has made very serious observations about hundreds of crores of rupees being misappropriated. The report has also said that there are many files missing that weren’t placed before him despite his repeated requests, sources said.  

The overall spending during Covid in the state was to the tune of Rs 13,000 crore. While no figure was mentioned officially, sources indicated that around Rs 1000 crore was siphoned off.

The report is expected to be finalized within the next six months and can even be tabled during the winter session of parliament. The government has extended the tenure of the committee by six months, so it can submit the final report.

Sources said the 1000-page multiple-volume interim report will now be analysed by officers and submitted to the government in less than a month.  

Asked about the scam versus scam allegations, Law and parliamentary affairs minister HK Patil said it is “unfortunate” that whenever an important report comes it is termed eye for an eye. 

“MUDA is less than two months old. The Cunha committee was appointed a year back. How can you bring that analogy here? It was an administrative measure”. 

The Cunha report is seen as a boon to the Congress and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, whom the BJP has been trying to corer over the MUDA scam. Mr Siddaramaiah has gone to court challenging the Governor’s clearance to prosecute him in the matter.

The alleged scam is linked to irregularities in land allocation by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority or MUDA. There have been allegations that the allocation of compensatory land parcels to BM Parvathi, Siddaramaiah’s wife, far exceeds the value of the land given in exchange.

More than four years since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO (World Health Organization) in March 2020, fear of another mass outbreak looms large. The WHO, on August 14, declared the current upsurge of Mpox or Monkeypox in Central Africa as a global emergency requiring urgent action. The global concern for the virus grew as it spread to other African countries, and, within no time, the deadly strain of Mpox – Clade 1b – crossed the African continent to reach Sweden, Pakistan, and other countries.

The virus has killed more than 500 people so far, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease has been spreading since last year. The country saw more than 96% of the world’s roughly 17,000 recorded cases of Mpox this year.

Though India has not reported any cases yet, the Central government is keeping a close eye on the situation. Our healthcare infrastructure faced severe challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in thousands of deaths. One wouldn’t wish to be caught unawares this time.

Is Mpox As Dangerous As Covid-19 Or Swine Flu?

Mpox is a zoonotic infection that causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions. Fatal in some cases, the WHO first declared it a global emergency in 2022. 

Mpox virus can be categorised into two clades: Clade 1 and Clade 2. The first, which is found mainly in Central African countries, is more severe and has a high mortality rate. Clade 2 has milder symptoms and is found in western Africa. The latter caused a public health emergency in 2022, wherein some 300 cases — though mild — were reported from Sweden. This time, it’s the newer and more serious Clade 1b, identified in September last year, that has been driving the current outbreak.

Though experts worry that Mpox may be as dangerous as Covid-19 or the swine flu, there is a difference in the nature of transmission. Both Covid-19 and swine flu were highly infectious because they were airborne. In contrast, Mpox is transmitted through close skin-to-skin contact, talking or breathing close to an infected person, or using their soiled clothes or bedsheets. “Mpox is unlikely to become a pandemic like Covid-19 primarily due to its mode of spread. It requires very close and physical contact, unlike the airborne SARS-CoV-2. Also, symptoms like blisters on the skin are more visible indicators and therefore, it’s easier to identify the disease and isolate a person to contain the spread,” says Rakesh K. Mishra, former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

India’s first Mpox case was recorded in Kerala in 2022, from a traveller from the UAE. Soon, the virus spread within the country, with cases emerging in Delhi even from individuals who had no recent international travel. India reported 27 confirmed cases and one death that year, according to WHO. The last case in the country was in March this year, in Kerala, and since then, no new cases have been recorded.

How To Stay Safe

In response to the WHO’s warning, both Central and state governments have sprung into action. There are monkeypox advisories in place and public health measures are being taken. Both the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) are closely monitoring the situation and reviewing international trends.

In Tamil Nadu, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) has already issued alerts. Reports say that passengers arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African countries are being tracked by airport health officers and port health personnel. Both Hyderabad and New Delhi — cities popular among African students pursuing higher education — have also been placed on high alert.

The Need For Vaccines

The first Mpox strain was isolated by ICMR researchers in 2022. Pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers are being called upon to develop vaccines and testing kits for the virus. Existing vaccines for smallpox and chickenpox might also offer protection in India. 

About other prevention strategies, Mishra says, “It is important to closely monitor the spread of the disease in different countries and be ready for screening by already available methods of DNA-based diagnostics. There is an effective vaccine already available but supply of that may not be easy to ensure.”  

“Simple practices like avoiding close physical contact with suspected/potentially infected person, maintaining distance from people with symptoms, and wearing a mask, should be effective in containing the spread of the infection,” Mishra adds. 

Developed nations, mostly those in Europe, already have vaccines available for those at greater risk of monkeypox. And given the high quality of healthcare there, containing the disease will be less challenging. It’s underdeveloped African countries, which have neither vaccines nor the resources to buy them, that remain at most risk and which need the most help. 

(Bharti Mishra Nath is Contributing Editor, NDTV)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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

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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.