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London/Milan, Jun 2: World Health Organization experts and a range of other scientists said on Monday there was no evidence to support an assertion by a high profile Italian doctor that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been losing potency.

Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, which bore the brunt of Italy's COVID-19 epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, as well as several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

"In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed," Van Kerkhove told reporters.

It is not unusual for viruses to mutate and adapt as they spread, and the debate on Monday highlights how scientists are monitoring and tracking the new virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 370,000 people and infected more than 6 million.

Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said major studies looking at genetic changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 did not support the idea that it was becoming less potent, or weakening in any way.

"With data from more than 35,000 whole virus genomes, there is currently no evidence that there is any significant difference relating to severity," he said in an emailed comment.

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published next week.

Zangrillo told Reuters: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from COVID-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean, an expert at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

Washington, Apr 9: At least 11 Indians have died of COVID-19 in the United States with another 16 testing positive for the infection which has claimed more than 14,000 lives and afflicted more than four lakh people in the US.

All Indian citizens who have succumbed to the deadly infection in the US are male, with ten of them from New York and New Jersey area. Four of the victims are said to be taxi drivers in New York City.

New York City has emerged as the US epicentre for COVID-19 spurt, accounting for more than 6,000 deaths and over 1,38,000 cases of infections. New Jersey accounts for 1,500 fatalities and nearly 48,000 infections.

One Indian national reportedly died in Florida because of coronavirus. Authorities are also ascertaining the nationality of some other Indian origin people in the States of California and Texas.

All 16 Indians, including four females, who have tested positive for coronavirus are in self-quarantine. Coming from diverse background, eight of them are from New York, three from New Jersey and rest from other states like Texas and California. They hail from Indian states like Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

Indian Embassy and consulates across the United States are working closely with local authorities and Indian-American organizations to provide necessary assistance to Indian nationals and students affected with COVID-19.

Because of the strict travel restrictions and regulations to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, local city officials have been performing the last rites of the deceased and in many cases are not allowing even their immediate family members to attend their cremations, officials said.

Amsterdam, Jun 18: A statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been vandalised here in the capital of Netherlands by unknown miscreants with graffiti and spray painting, amid a wave of attacks on controversial figures following the protests around the world after the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd, according to media reports.

The statue of Gandhi on the Churchilllaan in Amsterdam was covered with red paint and the pedestal has 'racist' and an abbreviation for an expletive against the police chalked on it, Metro, the Dutch newspaper, reported.

According to alderman Rutger Groot Wassink, the municipality will file a declaration for daubing.

"Obviously, we are opposed to any form of vandalism and daubing of these things is completely unacceptable," the city official was quoted as saying by the AD.nl.

"It is logical that we will file a declaration, the image will be cleaned," Wassink said.

It is not yet known who is behind the daubing. An employee of the Kunstwacht, who provides maintenance and repairs, says that the cleaning work can take hours.

A 75-year-old man saw the daubs on Wednesday and called the municipality. “I have lived here for forty years and I have never experienced this. I have been watching the statue for years," the man said.

Since the death of 46-year-old Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, US, and subsequent worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, there has been much debate about street names and statues of people with a colonial past. All over the world, statues of controversial historical figures are brought down or defaced.

Recently, images and buildings have been defaced in various places that refer to the colonial past of the Netherlands, including the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and the statue of Piet Hein in Rotterdam. These are anti-racist expressions that follow the death of Floyd through a white police officer, Metro reported.

Gandhi was known as a champion of human rights and non-violence. But in his twenties, which he spent in South Africa, he still called black people “troublesome, very dirty and they live like beasts” and found that the white people were the “dominant race”. Later he renounced those ideas, the report added.

The statue was unveiled on the Churchillaan on October 2, 1990 in honour of Gandhi's 121st birthday.

The design was made by the sculptor Karel Gomes, who died in 2016. At the time, the plan for the statue came from the Hindu organisation Triveda.

Gandhi is depicted walking, featuring robes around the body, slippers on the feet, a book in one hand and a stick in the other.