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The Hindu March 25, 2020 PTI Over the last few weeks, India has banned exports of host of medical devices including sanitisers, all types of ventilators and surgical masks. Amid the  coronavirus outbreak , the government on Wednesday banned export of anti-malarial drug hydroxycloroquine, with immediate effect to ensure sufficient availability of the medicine in the domestic market. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava had on Monday recommended the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating healthcare workers handling suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases and also the asymptomatic household contacts of the lab-confirmed cases. The treatment protocol recommended by the ICMR-constituted National Task Force for COVID-19 has been approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) for restricted use in emergency situations. In a notification issued on Wednesday, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), an arm of the co...

Business today March 25, 2020 E Kumar Sharma Private labs are gearing up to carry out coronavirus tests as kit-makers work overtime to ensure timely delivery. Mylab  and Altona Diagnostics India are the two suppliers of the testing kits. Mylab is hoping to ship out its first set of kits today. They are targeting producing 150 kits, which translates to 15,000 tests in batch sizes of 100 tests per day, in the next two days   Mylab's director  Dr Gautam Wankhede  says they are in a position to start supplying because they already have "the raw material and been in the molecular diagnostics manufacturing for the last three to four years." "We have already been approved for other sensitive kits for  HIV , and have been supplying to leading hospitals. We have the manufacturing in place with well set protocols. Having known the  RNA  sequence that needed to be targeted for this virus, we started designing our primers and probes (essential co...

DAWN March 26, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic is threatening the entire human race, the United Nations warned on Wednesday as it launched a humanitarian response plan featuring an appeal for $2 billion to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. “Covid-19 is threatening the whole of humanity — and the whole of humanity must fight back,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in announcing the initiative. “Global action and solidarity are crucial. Individual country responses are not going to be enough.” By Wednesday night the coronavirus pandemic had killed more than 20,000 people worldwide, over 13,000 of them in Europe, according to a tally. The UN plan “aims to enable us to fight the virus in the world’s poorest countries, and address the needs of the most vulnerable people, especially women and children, older people, and those with disabilities or chronic illness,” said the UN chief. World Bank and International Monetary Fund urge bilateral creditors ...

Business Standard March 25, 2020 PTI China on Wednesday downgraded the risk level of the  coronavirus   in its epicentre Wuhan from high to medium and resumed bus services within the city for the first time since the nine-week lockdown even as a new study said thousands of positive cases there may have gone under the radar. China has decided to lift the three-month lockdown on more than 56 million people in the central Hubei province. However, the prolonged lockdown of Hubei's capital Wuhan will end on April 8, lifting the mass quarantine over the city with a population of over 11 million. Also, Wuhan will resume commercial flights from April 8, excluding  international   flights and flights to and from Beijing. The government has downgraded the risk level of Wuhan for COVID-19 outbreak from high to medium, state-run China Daily reported on Wednesday. While Hubei and Wuhan has not reported any new COVID-19 case, four people died in t...

First Post March 26, 2020 ANI haheen Bagh protestors on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Supreme Court seeking an investigation into alleged "forcible removal and destruction" of their protest site on 24 March and have sought a direction from the apex court for citizens' rights. File image of anti-CAA protesters at Shaheen Bagh. PTI The Shaheen Bagh protestors wrote the letter through the court-appointed interlocutors, about "forcible and vindictive removal" of the protest site at Shaheen Bagh on the morning of 24 March, 2020, and the subsequent detention of "peaceful, innocent protesters and volunteers". "While we understand the need for the stricter imposition of curfew and enforcement of pertinent restrictions, the ruthless dismantling of the markers of our physical protest, especially the very structures whose placement is in question in a matter that is sub-judice in the SC," the protestors said in the letter. A copy of th...

India Today March 24, 2020 Sonali Acharjee hen the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) released a statement on March 23 recommending use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medicine for those who face a high risk of coronavirus infection, C. Banerjee, a 69-year-old resident of Delhi’s Kalkaji, says the news gave him the shivers. In the 1980s, as cases of malaria began to increase in India, chloroquine (which is closely related to hydroxychloroquine) was widely prescribed. "It is like swallowing death," recounts Banerjee. Reported side effects of chloroquine include nausea, headache, mood swings, skin irritation, swelling, cramps, pale skin, muscle weakness, bleeding from nose and hearing problems. An overdose can result in death. Hydroxychloroquine too can lead to headaches, nausea, lowering of blood glucose, drowsiness, reduced appetite, depression, irreversible blindness, cramps and heart failure (if overdosed). "It leaves a hor...

Voz Wire March 20, 2020 Jacqueline Bowser Larry Klayman co-founder of  Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch has filed a $20 trillion dollar class-action lawsuit against China’s government for the COVID-19 global pandemic. Klayman is alleging that the coronavirus COVID-19 globally pandemic is a result of a Chinese bioweapon that spread worldwide. The lawsuit filed on Tuesday is seeking that the People’s Republic of China is held responsible for damages to Americans and he believes other countries will join the lawsuit.  The class-action lawsuit has named the Wuhan Institute of Virology located in Wuhan, China, the institute’s director, Shi Zhengli, the Liberation Army and Major General and virologist  Chen Wei of China’s Liberation Army as defendants. Klayman filed the lawsuit on behalf of Freedom Watch and Buzz Photos. Buzz Photos a photography company located in Texas that specializes in youth sports has claimed that due to school closures the company is now ...

OpIndia March 24, 2020 Amid the scare of the deadly coronavirus epidemic where the state is facing the shortage of masks and other essential commodities, the Maharashtra police seized masks in abundance from the godowns of Andheri and Bhiwandi which is being  reported   to stored for black marketing. While talking to media, Home Minister of Maharashtra revealed that 25 lakh masks including 3 lakh N95 masks valued at Rs 15 crore were seized from godowns in Andheri and Bhiwandi. The masks were stored for black marketing. Anil Deshmukh said that 4 arrests have been made in this case so far while two accused have been absconding. As per  reports , Mumbai Crime Branch located seized face masks. Commissioner of Police, Param Bir Singh said that they received information about the stock of huge quantity of masks, which includes 2.75 lakh N95 masks stored for the purpose of Black marketing. The inspector of Crime Branch Mahesh Desai laid a trap on the information a...

First Post MArch 26,2020 Debobrat Ghose Rebutting the Chhattisgarh police's claim that a large number of Maoists have been eliminated in the fierce gun-battle that took place on 21 March, the Naxals – in a first -- issued a statement along with photos today claiming that they lost only three fighters against  17 jawans  of the security forces. It seems that the Maoists have unleashed a propaganda war against the State to counter the claims made by Chhattisgarh police. As a proof of their claim, they have issued photos of the three Maoists killed along with their names, area of operation and villages they belonged to. Unlike in the past, this is probably for the first time that they have mentioned all these details. It may be an attempt to prove Chhattisgarh police wrong as the latter had claimed on 22 March that eight to 10 Maoists were killed during the gunfight. On 21 March, a fierce gun-battle took place -- inside the hilly and forested area of Minpa-Ela...

Great Game India March 24, 2020 China’s Biological Warfare Program is believed to be in an advanced stage that includes research and development, production and weaponization capabilities. Its current inventory is believed to include the full range of traditional chemical and biological agents with a wide variety of delivery systems including artillery rockets, aerial bombs, sprayers, and short-range ballistic missiles. History A combination of past and present geostrategic factors distinctly affect the Chinese approaches and outlooks with regard to Biological Warfare. The first major factor is the relapsing Japanese Biological Warfare attacks against and human Biological Warfare experimenting on Chinese populations, which took place from 1933 to 1945, killing and injuring tens of thousands, without the Chinese being able to cope or retaliate. The employment of Biological Warfare against the Chinese by the Japanese military had a long-lasting impact in China. The Chi...