Fortis Healthcare, one of India’s largest healthcare service providers with around 4,000 beds, said occupancy at its hospitals fell to a low of 29% in April from 69% due to the impact of the Coronavirus lockdown. It, however, said that admissions have improved and occupancy levels had recovered to 35% for the month of May. […]
Maruti Suzuki has come out with a range of health-related products and car accessories keeping in mind the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The most interesting of these is the ‘car cabin separator’, a PVC shield that can be kept behind the front seats to seal off the front and back sections of the car. “The car […]
India is now making a substantial number of essential medical supplies such as personal protection equipment (PPE), N95 masks and ventilators, the central government said today. Medical professionals in India were hit by a dangerous shortage of PPE kits and N95 masks till about two weeks ago, leading to at least some nurses taking to […]
Five states in India have so far ‘flattened’ the Coronavirus curve in India, while the situation in nine states continues to be cause for concern. In all, four states are seeing strong daily increases in COVID-19 numbers. These are Maharashtra and Gujarat — the most worrisome — as well as Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (see […]
With an addition of 127 cases so far today, the western Indian state of Gujarat has dislodged the national capital Delhi as the state with the second highest number of Coronavirus 2019 cases in India. The state, which also crossed the 2,000 patient milestone today, also has the highest death rate — along with Madhya […]
Indian Council of Medical Research, India’s top body for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, said it will start a new trial next week to study the efficacy of anti-TB vaccine BCG in preventing mortality in COVID-19. The statement comes even as the World Health Organization has said that there is no evidence […]
Five lakh rapid test kits for COVID-19 have arrived in India from China, but these will not be used for diagnosing suspected cases, Indian Council of Medical Research said today, adding that these will be used only for monitoring overall trends in the general population. India has, this week, got delivery of around 5 lakh […]
Health authorities in Kerala are in a state of surprise, if not shock, due to a new trend showing NRIs who have been in quarantine for 25 days or more starting to show COVID-19 symptoms. The new findings fly in the face of the widespread assumption that Coronavirus infected persons will show symptoms within 14 […]
Union health ministry today said that the country is ready to face any “exponential rise” in the number of Coronavirus cases and has, as of now, nearly 63 times the number of hospital beds at its disposal as is required to treat present COVID-19 cases. Luv Agarwal, spokesperson for the ministry of health and family […]
Even as other states continued to report high levels of new COVID-19 cases, Kerala reported a net decline of 20 in its tally of Coronavirus patients. While 7 new cases were reported, 27 existing patients tested negative and were discharged from the hospital. The number of new cases reported today is the lowest in nearly […]
Even as discussions about the continuation of the national lockdown continues, India has seen a record number of new COVID-19 patients in the last 24 hours. According to various crowd-sourced data sources, a total of 809 new cases of Coronavirus infections were reported in the last 24 hours (official confirmation expected today afternoon). This is […]
India has seen 549 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, said the ministry of health and family welfare, government of India, indicating that the number of new cases continues to remain elevated for the ninth day in a row. India started finding a high number of new cases on April 1, nearly a […]
The first case of COVID-19 in India was reported 67 days ago on January 30 in Kerala. It was only after 55 days that India imposed a countrywide lockdown to prevent the virus from spreading. In those 55 days, the Coronavirus infected around 500 people — at an average rate of 9 new infections per […]
Kerala Government may radically expand the number of liquor outlets in the state by tomorrow to prevent crowding at the existing outlets. Kerala State Beverages Corporation, along with Kerala State Co-operatives Consumers’ Federation, has a legal monopoly over the retailing of liquor in Kerala. However, with only around 300 outlets to serve a population of […]
Malayalam Superstar Mohanlal expressed frustration at the high number of people who are refusing to heed government’s instructions on combating Coronavirus, and compared community clapping to magic that can destroy bacteria and viruses. “It won’t do to just say that we are not used to [such restrictions],” Mohanlal said in an interview with Malayalam channel […]
The ministry of traditional medicines at Government of India has hit back at critics who have questioned the medical validity of its recent advisory on countering Coronavirus through herbal medicine. The AYUSH ministry had issued a list of dos and don’ts last week, including items such as ensuring proper personal hygiene, wearing face masks in […]
Members of the special emergency team set up by Kerala health minister KK Shailaja were faced with a unique dilemma on Friday after a girl who returned from Wuhan, China with fever refused to enter quarantine on religious grounds. According to local media reports quoting health ministry officials, the girl belongs to one of the […]
Aurobindo Pharma Ltd has said that the US FDA has lined up one of its oral solids formulation plants in Telangana for regulatory action, following adverse findings in an October inspection. The company’s shares had fallen by 19% in intra-day trading on October 8, soon after the company disclosed that FDA inspectors had made seven […]
The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a Form 483 with five observations for Biocon’s API Manufacturing facility. Form 483 observations are issued when US FDA inspectors notice shortcomings in a company’s manufacturing processes, data storage and so on during an inspection. The company has to address the issues raised in the Form 483 […]
Alembic Pharmaceuticals, one of India’s biggest drug makers, received two observations from US FDA officials who inspected its plant at Karkhadi in Gujarat. Observations, given in Form 483, indicate that the inspectors were not fully satisfied with what they found during the visit. In a Form 483, the FDA typically outlines conditions or practices at […]
