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Washington, Jul 9: Ayurvedic practitioners and researchers in India and the US are planning to initiate joint clinical trials for Ayurveda formulations against the novel coronavirus, the Indian envoy here has said.

In a virtual interaction with a group of eminent Indian-American scientists, academicians, and doctors on Wednesday, Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu said the vast network of institutional engagements have brought scientific communities between the two countries together in the fight against Covid-19.

 “Our Institutions have also been collaborating to promote Ayurveda through joint research, teaching and training programs. Ayurvedic practitioners and researchers in both the countries are planning to initiate joint clinical trials of Ayurvedic formulations against Covid-19,” Sandhu said.

“Our scientists have been exchanging knowledge and research resources on this front,” he said.

The Indo-US Science Technology Forum (IUSSTF) has always been instrumental in promoting excellence in science, technology, and innovation through collaborative activities.

To address Covid-19-related challenges, the IUSSTF had given a call to support joint research and start-up engagements. A large number of proposals are being reviewed on fast track mode by the experts on both the sides, he said.

“Indian pharmaceutical companies are global leaders in producing affordable low-cost medicines and vaccines and will play an important role in the fight against this pandemic,” Sandhu said.

According to the ambassador, there are at least three ongoing collaborations between Indian vaccine companies with US-based institutions.

These collaborations would be beneficial not just to India and the US, but also for the billions who would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 across the world, he noted.

Asserting that innovation will be the key driver in pandemic response and recovery, he said tech-companies and start-ups have already begun to take the lead in this direction.

"Telemedicine and telehealth will evolve as will other digital platforms across sectors," he said.

Noting that there has been a longstanding collaboration between India and the US in the health sector, he said scientists have been working together in several programs to understand important diseases at the basic and clinical level.

Many such programs have been focused on translational research to develop new therapeutics and diagnostics.

There are over 200 ongoing NIH funded projects in India involving 20 institutions from NIH network and several eminent institutions in India engaged in a wide spectrum of research areas to create health care solutions, the senior diplomat said.

The collaboration under Vaccine Action Program (VAP) resulted in the development of ROTAVAC vaccine against rotavirus which causes severe diarrhea in children.

The vaccine was developed by an Indian company (Bharat Biotech) at an affordable cost. It has been commercialised and introduced in the Expanded Program on Immunisation.

Development of many other vaccines such as TB, Influenza, Chikungunya are also in progress under the VAP, he said.

 “As I speak, the VAP meeting is in progress where experts from both countries are deeply engaged in technical discussions to expedite development of Covid-19 vaccine,” Sandhu said in his remarks.

During the interaction, the eminent experts appreciated India's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and offered their valuable suggestions and best practices in this regard.

They shared their ideas on deepening the knowledge partnership between India and the US.

The experts who took part in the interaction, were drawn from wide-ranging fields including artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biomedical engineering, robotics, mechanical engineering, earth and ocean science, virology, physics, astrophysics, and health sciences.

Prominent among those who attended the virtual interaction were Subhash Kak Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University, Dr Vijay Kuchroo, Samuel L Wasserstrom Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Dr Ashish M Kamat, Professor of Urology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Ashutosh Chilkoti, Alan L Kaganov Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University; and Prof Manu Prakash, a professor in Department of Bioengineering at Sandford University, among others.

Washington D.C, Feb 10: Children's vulnerability towards depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, and poor cognitive performance could be determined by considering the hours of sleep they manage to get.

Sleep states are active processes that support the reorganisation of brain circuitry. This makes sleep especially important for children, whose brains are developing and reorganising rapidly.

In a study by researchers from the University of Warwick -- recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry -- cases of 11,000 children aged between 9 and 11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset were analyzed to find out the relationship between sleep duration and brain structure.

The study was carried out by researchers Professor Jianfeng Feng, Professor Edmund Rolls, Dr. Wei Cheng and colleagues from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science and Fudan University.

Measures of depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and poor cognitive performance in the children were associated with shorter sleep duration. Moreover, the depressive problems were associated with short sleep duration one year later.

The reduced brain volume of areas such as orbitofrontal cortex, prefrontal, and temporal cortex, precuneus, and supramarginal gyrus was found to be associated with the shorter sleep duration.

Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, comments: "The recommended amount of sleep for children 6 to 12 years of age is 9-12 hours. However, sleep disturbances are common among children and adolescents around the world due to the increasing demand on their time from school, increased screen time use, and sports and social activities."

A previous study showed that about 60 per cent of adolescents in the United States receive less than eight hours of sleep on school nights.

Professor Jianfeng Feng further added: "Our findings showed that the total score for behavior problems in children with less than 7 hours sleep was 53 per cent higher on average and the cognitive total score was 7.8 per cent lower on average than for children with 9-11 hours of sleep. It highlights the importance of enough sleep in both cognition and mental health in children."

Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science also commented: "These are important associations that have been identified between sleep duration in children, brain structure, and cognitive and mental health measures, but further research is needed to discover the underlying reasons for these relationships."

The World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. Thursday saw the most cases in a single day reported to the WHO.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the day had seen 150,000 new cases with half of those coming from the Americas and large numbers also from the Middle East and South Asia, the BBC reported.

He said the virus was still spreading fast and the pandemic accelerating.

He acknowledged people might be fed up with self-isolating and countries were eager to open their economies but he said that now was a time for extreme vigilance.

Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO's COVID-19 response, told a press conference the pandemic is "accelerating in many parts of the world".

"While we have seen countries have some success in suppressing transmission and bringing transition down to a low level, every country must remain ready," she said.

Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said that some countries had managed to flatten the peak of infections without bringing them down to a very low level.

"You can see a situation in some countries where they could get a second peak now, because the disease has not been brought under control," he said.

"The disease will then go away and reduce to a low level, and they could then get a second wave again in the autumn or later in the year."