Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
May 6: In a first, a Pakistani Hindu youth has become the first person from the minority community to join the Pakistan Air Force.
Rahul Dev has been recruited as a General Duty Pilot Officer, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) said in a tweet.
Dev hails from Tharparkar district of Sindh province.
Sharing the picture of the young man, the PAF recently tweeted, "Good news during #COVID19 tense situation. Thar rocked again...Congratulations #RahulDev who hails from very remote village of Tharparkar has been selected as GD Pilot in #PAF."
Though Dev's exact age is not known, those inducted in PAF at his level are often around 20.
The official Radio Pakistan on Wednesday said it is "for the first time in Pakistan's history" that a Hindu youth has been recruited as a general duty pilot officer in PAF.
The Express Tribune in a report published on Wednesday said the induction showed that the PAF was breaking barriers.
Last year, Kainat Junaid became the first woman from Khyber-Pakthunkhwa province to have been selected for fighter pilot training.
Junaid not only secured the top position in PAF's test for General Duty Pilot, but also became Pakistan’s first female fighter pilot to serve the country alongside her father.
Her father Ahmed Junaid is a Squadron Leader in the PAF.
Washington, Apr 17: A record number of 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours due to the deadly novel coronavirus in the US, which has the highest number of COVID-19 casualties in the world.
According to the Johns Hopkins University data, by 8 pm on Thursday, as many as 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours, The Wall Street Journal said.
The previous highest was 2,569 on Wednesday.
By Thursday, more than 662,000 Americans tested positive with the coronavirus.
The dreaded disease, which originated in Wuhan city in China in December last year, has so far claimed more than 144,000 lives and infected over 2.1 million people.
The virus has infected over 671,000 people and claimed more than 33,000 lives, the highest for any country in the world.
New York City and its adjoining areas, including New Jersey and Connecticut have emerged as the epicenter of the virus in the US.
New York alone accounts for 226,000 cases of infections and 16,106 deaths.
In New Jersey, as many as 3,518 people have died of the disease and 75,317 have tested positive.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, till April 14, four per cent of the Americans infected with COVID-19 were of Asian origin and nearly one-third (30 per cent) were African Americans.
US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that experts and scientists report that his strategy to slow the spread of the virus has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths. If there was no mitigation, it could have even been higher than that and between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. It is looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers, he said.
Noting that experts say the curve of the virus has flattened, and the peak in the new cases has passed, Trump said that nationwide, more than 850 counties or nearly 30 per cent of the country have reported no new cases in the last seven days.
Because of our early and aggressive action, we have avoided the tragedy of health care rationing and deadly shortfalls that have befallen in many other nations, nations which wherever possible we are helping, he said.
According to Trump, at least 35 clinical trials are already underway, including antiviral therapies, immune therapies, and blood therapies in the form of convalescent plasma. So far, more than 3.5 million tests have been carried out.
Beijing/Zurich, Mar 4: China has approved the use of Swiss drugmaker Roche's anti-inflammation drug Actemra for patients who develop severe complications from the coronavirus as it urgently hunts for new ways to combat the deadly infection that is spreading worldwide.
China is hoping that some older drugs could stop severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS), or cytokine storms, an overreaction of the immune system which is considered a major factor behind catastrophic organ failure and death in some coronavirus patients.
Actemra, a biologic drug approved in 2010 in the United States for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), inhibits high Interleukin 6 (IL-6) protein levels that drive some inflammatory diseases.
China's National Health Commission said in treatment guidelines published online on Wednesday that Actemra can now be used to treat coronavirus patients with serious lung damage and high IL-6 levels.
Separately, researchers in the country are testing Actemra, known generically as tocilizumab, in a clinical trial expected to include 188 coronavirus patients and running until May 10.
Roche, which donated 14 million yuan ($2.02 million) worth of Actemra during February, said the trial was initiated independently by a third party with the aim of exploring the efficacy and safety of the drug in coronavirus patients with CRS.
It added that there was currently no published clinical trial data on the drug's safety or efficacy against the virus.
More than 3,000 people have died and 93,000 have been infected by the novel coronavirus thought to have originated in Wuhan, China, before spreading to around 90 countries including the United States, Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany.
The Swiss company, for which China is its No. 2 market behind the United States, also makes diagnostic gear to detect the coronavirus.
Since Actemra's approval a decade ago, it has become a go-to drug against other inflammatory conditions, including cytokine storms in cancer patients receiving cell therapies from Novartis and Gilead Sciences.
In 2012 it helped save the life of a young U.S. girl, the first child to be treated for leukaemia with Novatis' Kymriah, from a post-treatment rush of IL-6.
Priced at between $20-30,000 annually for RA according to SSR Health, Roche's medicine is also used for rare juvenile arthritis and giant cell arteritis, or inflammation of the blood vessels.
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