PM Modi, Jordan king discuss challenges posed by COVID-19

Jun 23: The U.S. government on Monday restricted charter flights from India, accusing the nation of "unfair and discriminatory practices" by violating a treaty governing aviation between the two countries.

Air India Ltd. has been making flights to repatriate its citizens during the travel disruptions caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, but also has been selling tickets to the public, the Transportation Department alleged.

At the same time, U.S. airlines have been prohibited from flying to India by aviation regulators there, the DOT said in its order. The situation "creates a competitive disadvantage for U.S. carriers," the agency said in a press release.

Air India is advertising a schedule that is more than half of pre-virus operations, the department said. "The charters go beyond true repatriations, and it appears that Air India may be using repatriation charters as a way of circumventing" that nation's flight restrictions, the U.S. agency said.

The order becomes effective in 30 days, the department said.

Indian airlines must apply to the DOT for authorization before conducting charter flights so that it can scrutinize them more closely, it said. The department will reconsider the restrictions once India lifts restrictions on U.S. carriers.

The action against India follows weeks of DOT restrictions against Chinese airlines after the U.S. agency accused that nation of unfairly banning American carriers in the wake of the virus. On June 15, the U.S. announced it would agree to allow four flights a week from China after it allowed the same number by U.S. carriers.

Attempts to reach Air India and the Indian embassy in Washington after business hours were unsuccessful.

New Delhi, Jun 4: CSIR Director-General Shekhar Mande said on Thursday that the World Health Organisation's (WHO) decision to halt hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) drug trial was taken in haste and the global body should have actually analysed the data before making the decision.

"I firmly believe that WHO decision was taken in haste it was a kind of knee jerk reaction they should have actually analyse the data on their own before temporarily suspend the trials that is my personal opinion," Mande said.

India's nodal government agency ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) overseeing the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic last month wrote to the WHO citing differences in dosage standards between Indian and international trials that could explain the efficacy issues of HCQ in treating COVID-19 patients.

In addition, Dr Sheela Godbole, National Coordinator of the WHO-India Solidarity Trial and Head of the Division of Epidemiology, ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute also wrote a letter via an email to Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at World Health Organisation.

In a letter, Dr Godbole stated: "There was no reason to suspend the trial for safety concern," attributing it to the current RECOVERY data which differs significantly from the non-randomised assessment by Mehra et al, a scientific paper.

Referring to the letter, the CSIR head said, "We don't know what actually happened behind the scenes but the hypothesis is that because of the paper published in Lancet. It is a very well known journal and if Lancet has done due vigilance in publishing the paper. 

Therefore, the WHO thought the paper's findings are right that's why WHO hold based on what is published on Lancet. The WHO shouldn't have accepted it immediately this should have taken their own due vigilance to find out that study is right or not."

DG CSIR said because there is a global outcry it must have put pressure on both Lancet as well as WHO and both of them now retracted from their original position. "WHO has started a trial again and Lancet has put an expression of concern on their website both of these are very welcome development for science," he said.

"So I am pretty sure that Lancet would have published the reports only after seeing somewhere the drug failed to work," Mande said.

New Delhi, Mar 9: The Centre and the Delhi government are working in close coordination to deal with coronavirus, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said here on Monday.

Talking to reporters after a review meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on the preparedness for COVID-19, the chief minister said people arriving from foreign countries are being screened at airports.

A campaign will be run to make people aware of the preventive measures to contain the spread of the disease, Kejriwal said.

Health Ministry sending directives to states: Vardhan

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government is prepared to deal with novel coronavirus and his ministry is sending directives, including guidelines, to states in all the languages on ways to contain it.

"We are sending detailed guidelines to all states on ways to contain coronavirus. Have asked states to strengthen laboratories and manpower to effectively deal with coronavirus and form early rapid action teams," Vardhan told reporters adding, that the government is prepared to deal with the infection.

Vardhan stressed on a coordinated action between all concerned departments and agencies for activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, hospital management, identification of isolation wards, ensuring adequate personal protection equipment and masks and risk communication for mass awareness.