Avoid wrapping food in newspaper, it's harmful: FSSAI

December 10, 2016

Mumbai, Dec 10: Wrapping food items in newspaper is bad for your health as its ink has multiple bio-active materials with known negative health effects, FSSAI said on Friday.

FSSAI

"Wrapping food in newspapers is an unhealthy practice and the consumption of such food is injurious to health, even if the food has been cooked hygienically," the Food, Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) said in an advisory.

"Printing inks may also contain harmful colours, pigments, binders, additives, and preservatives. Besides chemical contaminants, presence of pathogenic micro organisms in used newspapers also poses potential risk to human health," the advisory said.

The advisory also said that even paper/cardboard boxes made of recycled paper may be contaminated with harmful chemicals like phthalate which can cause digestive problems and also lead to severe toxicity.

"Older people, teenagers, children and people with compromised vital organs and immune systems are at a greater risk of acquiring cancer-related health complications, if they are exposed to food packed in such material," the advisory warned.

The advisory comes after Health Minister J.P. Nadda's directions to the food regulatory authority against the practice of wrapping and covering food items in newspapers in India.

Speaking in this regard J.P Nadda said: "It has been observed that vendors have been using newspapers in packing and serving food, which is harmful. I urge the public to dissuade the vendors from doing so."

According to the advisory, the Commissioners of Food Safety of all States/Union Territories will initiate systematic campaigns for generating awareness among all the stakeholders to discourage the use of newspapers for packing, serving and storing food items.

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Covid patients not infectious after 11 days, says new study

Agencies

May 25,2020

Singapore, May 25: COVID-19 patients are no longer infectious after 11 days of getting sick even though some may still test positive, according to a new study by infectious disease experts in Singapore.

A positive test "does not equate to infectiousness or viable virus," a joint research paper by Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and the Academy of Medicine, Singapore said. The virus "could not be isolated or cultured after day 11 of illness."

The paper was based on a study of 73 patents in the city-state.

The latest findings may have implications on the country's patient discharge policy. The discharge criteria is currently based on negative test results rather than infectiousness.

Singapore's strategy on managing COVID-19 patients is guided by the latest local and international clinical scientific evidence, and the Ministry of Health will evaluate if the latest evidence can be incorporated into its patient clinical management plan, according to a report by the Straits Times.

So far, 13,882, or about 45% of the total 31,068 Covid-19 patients in Singapore have been discharged from hospitals and community facilities. Singapore reported 642 new Covid-19 cases as of noon on Saturday.

The government has been actively screening pre-school staff as it prepares to reopen pre-schools from June 2. On Friday, two pre-school employees tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases among pre-school staff to seven, according to the Ministry of Health.

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First open source all-atom models of COVID-19 protein developed

Agencies

June 22,2020

A team of scientists has produced first open source all-atom models of full-length COVID-19 Spike protein that facilitates viral entry into host cells – a discovery that can facilitate a faster vaccine and antiviral drug development.

The group from Seoul National University in South Korea, University of Cambridge in the UK and Lehigh University in the US produced the first open-source all-atom models of a full-length S protein.

The researchers say this is of particular importance because the S protein plays a central role in viral entry into cells, making it a main target for vaccine and antiviral drug development.

"Our models are the first full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein models that are available to other scientists," said Wonpil Im, a professor in Lehigh University.

"Our team spent days and nights to build these models very carefully from the known cryo-EM structure portions. Modeling was very challenging because there were many regions where simple modeling failed to provide high-quality models," he wrote in a paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Scientists can use the models to conduct innovative and novel simulation research for the prevention and treatment of Covid-19.

Though the coronavirus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, the Spike protein is the major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor.

The total number of global COVID-19 cases was nearing 9 million, while the deaths have increased to over 467,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

With 2,279,306 cases and 119,967 deaths, the US continues with the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,083,341 infections and 50,591 deaths.

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