India’s first Olympian swimmer Mehboob Khan no more

Bengaluru, Jul 4: A young woman doctor at the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, Bengaluru, who had raised an alarm about faulty PPE kits and shortage of N95 masks, has tested positive for the covid-19.

Taking note of this, Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha brought the issue to the attention on Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Twitter. Tagging the minister, the MP tweeted, “For your information and I feel, it is a genuine concern.” “Amulya Gowda treated Covid patients at KIMS.

Karnataka Medical Association took to social media to express concern over the development. In a Facebook post it wrote: "Amulya C Gowda is a frontline worker who risks her life every single day. Last week she raised an alarm about faulty PPE kits and shortage of N-95 masks. But the Administrative Medical Officer (AMO) at KIMS, shunned and chastised her for raising this issue. Ever since, she has been buying her own N-95 masks. Today, she tested positive for Covid-19 and appealed to the Hospital authorities and raised her genuine concerns over the faulty protective gear, but she was again harassed and humiliated for raising the issue."

Dr DH Ashwath Narayana, Medical Superintendent, KIMS Hospital, said that all PPE kits at KIMS were certified by SITRA (South India Textiles Research Association), Coimbatore and that they had purchased N-95 masks available in the market. "One cannot claim faulty PPEs are the reason for testing positive. We have purchased whatever PPE kits are available in the market. Healthcare workers across hospitals, private and government, and policemen are also getting infected."

As the new rules by the state government allow healthcare workers home isolation, Narayana said the doctor is recuperating at home and that she is doing fine.

Medical education minister Dr K Sudhakar tweeted, "Doctors are our frontline warriors battling the pandemic. Government has taken all necessary measures to ensure safety of our doctors. I have taken note of supply of defective masks and PPE kits to KIMS doctors and ordered an enquiry. Management will be held responsible if found guilty."

Washington, Jun 30: Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS.

Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.

It possesses "all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans," say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans -- principally fever, coughing and sneezing. 

G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.

Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4.

According to blood tests which showed up antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4 percent of swine workers had already been infected.

The tests showed that as many as 4.4 percent of the general population also appeared to have been exposed.

The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human -- the scientists' main worry.

"It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic," the researchers wrote.

The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.

"The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses," said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University.

A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human.

Udupi, Apr 29: Udupi Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha on Wednesday said that though the district was in the green zone in connection with COVID-19, there would not be any further relaxations and the lockdown would continue till May 3.

According to a statement, he said that no fresh Covid-19 cases have been reported for the past month. However, the district is not immune to the threat of the infection. Thus, the lockdown would continue till May 3 with minimum relaxation.

The district has already initiated relaxations and mandatory guidelines have to be implemented, he further said.