FB posts on goddess: Man returning from Gulf held at Mangaluru Airport

Bengaluru, Feb 18:  A fan of Kannada film star Darshan smashed the face of a police constable with a boulder when the latter asked him to come in the queue to a party to celebrate the star’s birthday.

The incident happened past midnight on February 15 near the residence of the film star where his birthday was being celebrated.

The injured police constable has been identified as Devaraj, attached to the Jnana Bharathi police station.

The film star’s managers had not made arrangements to handle a huge crowd that gathered near his residence and police had a tough time controlling the crowd.

Constable Devaraj was deputed to duty at the party and tried to get the crowd to fall in line.

As the police carried out a mild lathi-charge to control the crowd, a fan of Darshan came up with a boulder in his hand and smashed the face of the constable Devaraj from very close distance. The constable collapsed on the spot and the attacker ran away.

The impact was such that Devaraj’s nose was fractured and he sustained an eye injury. He was admitted to a private hospital and his condition is said to be serious.

The R R Nagar police have registered a case under IPC sections 353 and 352. The cops have launched a hunt for the accused and they are obtaining CCTV footage from the spot.

A complaint is being registered against the organisers of the event and an investigation is on. Several neighbours of Darshan have also complained to the police about the chaos on February 15.

Bengaluru, Mar 27: Oncologist Dr. Vishal Rao, HCG Hospital Bengaluru on Friday said that human body cells release interferon chemical to kill viruses but it cannot be released by cells in the case of COVID-19 cases, leading to weak immune system. However, a therapy of specific concoction could be useful in treating COVID-19 patients.

"We got hold of some preprint suggesting that interferon is effective in COVID19," said Rao.

Speaking to news agency, he continued saying "When we withdraw blood for regular check-ups, we get buffy coat which can be used to take out cells and form interferon. These two chemicals and some other cytokines, in a specific concoction, could be potentially very useful in treating COVID-19 patients."

Rao said that they have built a concoction of cytokines which can be injected to reactivate immune system in COVID-19 patients.

"We are in a very initial stage and hope to be ready with its first set by this weekend. We have applied to the governement for an expedited review. We have also presented this before the state government" said Rao.

"We have a team of infection specialist, ICU team and other...all of us have worked together to build something that we believe. We want to serve the society at this hour of need," he added.

Dr Rao clarified that this is not a vaccine and this particular interferon therapy does not help to prevent the infection of COVID-19. However, this is focused and targeted towards COVID-19 positive patients or those who have just incubated the virus.

"We believe that in early stages as well as the patients who have just incubated, this particular therapy of interferon gama and other concoction of cytokines could be an effective method. In the late stages we are looking at specific dosage of the cells which are our own body cells which can actually be affective and could also be of use for the ventilator patients," he added.

Meanwhile, Dr Gururaj, Immunologist and Scientist told ANI that they are trying to cover two aspects, one is the early stage patients where they are trying to improve their immune systems.

"As Dr Vishal said, we are trying to see whether we can use the cytokines from our own immune cells which is a natural process but it is hampered in infected patients," said Dr Gururaj.

"In the last phase we are using cells which are used from the bone marrow of the patient or donors. We can use those cells to reduce the inflation and so called cytokines release syndrome which is basically the inflammatory response of the body," he added.

Chitradurga, Apr 11: Akhila Bharata Hindu Mahasabha district president M Kumaraswamy has been arrested by Police on charges of posting provocative posts on Facebook.

Police said on Saturday that Syed Sadath who is the Popular Front of India District Secretary, in Chitradurga filed a complaint stating that Mr Kumaraswamy had posted ''Godhra riots will be repeated by Karsevaks'' on his Facebook page on April 7.

Mr Sadath said that Kumaraswamy was spreading communal hatred and targeting one community, at a time when the world was struggling to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.