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WHO chief scientist says 15 EU countries recognize Covishield vaccine

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Friday said 15 countries in the European Union (EU) now recognize Covishield vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University for travellers.

In a tweet, Swaminathan said, “15 countries in EU now recognize COVISHIELD for travelers.”

On Friday, Charge d’affaires of Belgium Embassy Arnaud Lion said that recognition of Covishield by his country will have a positive impact for everyone getting the vaccine shot in India and abroad.

“On July 7, the inter-ministerial conference in Belgium decided to recognize the Covishield vaccination, which will have a positive impact I hope for everyone in India abd outside India being vaccinated with Covishield,” Lion told ANI.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Doctor booked for not informing kin about patient’s death, overcharging

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

A doctor was arrested in Maharashtra’s Sangli district on Thursday for allegedly not disclosing to a woman’s family for two days that she had died, and moreover overcharging them.

The 60-year-old woman was admitted to Islampur’s Adhar Healthcare Hospital in February this year. She died on March 8, but Dr. Yogesh Watharkar, the accused, did not inform her relatives immediately, said a police official.

Dr. Watharkar continued to “treat” the woman till March 10, according to the police official. “The accused told the woman’s son that she died on March 10 and handed over the body,” he added.

The fraud came to light when the death certificate issued by the municipal corporation ten days later mentioned that she had died on March 8.

“The woman’s son questioned the doctor but did not receive any satisfactory reply, so he filed a police complaint,” the police officer said. “We sent the case to the medical board of the government hospital and during their inquiry, discrepancies came to light,” he added.

The inquiry also revealed that the hospital had overcharged the family even for the actual treatment.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Alembic Pharmaceuticals gets USFDA final nod for Erlotinib Tablets

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

Alembic Pharmaceuticals announced that it has received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) for its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for Erlotinib Tablets, 25 mg, 100 mg, and 150 mg. The approved ANDA is therapeutically equivalent to the reference listed drug product (RLD), Tarceva Tablets, 25 mg, 100 mg, and 150 mg, of OSI Pharmaceuticals.

Erlotinib Tablets are indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21 (L858R) substitution mutations as detected by an FDA-approved test receiving first-line, maintenance, or second or greater line treatment after progression following at least one prior chemotherapy regimen. Erlotinib Tablet in combination with gemcitabine is indicated for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Erlotinib Tablets, 25 mg, 100 mg, and 150 mg, have an estimated market size of $37 million for twelve months ending March 2021 according to IQVIA.

Alembic has a cumulative total of 148 ANDA approvals (130 final approvals and 18 tentative approvals) from USFDA.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Working with Moderna to see make its COVID vaccine available in India: Govt

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

The government said on Friday that it is working actively with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna to see how its vaccine can be imported and made available in the country.

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was granted emergency use authorisation last month.

Responding to a question at a press briefing, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul said, “Moderna vaccine is under emergency use authorisation. The government is working actively with the manufacturers to see how to make this vaccine available in the country, importing it into the country, those efforts are on the process that has to be gone through is being actively pursued.”

In response to another question on the vaccine of drug firm Zydus Cadila, Paul said the company had submitted its third phase trial results to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) last week.

“Zydus Cadila has submitted its phase-3 trial results to the DCGI last week and scientific evidence is being probed and the process of exchange of information is actively going on,” he said.

In this trial, Paul said children were also included and “we are hoping that after all this data gets evaluated through scientific process then recommendations will be followed, and if there is enough evidence to support vaccination by this vaccine for children between 12-18 years then that will also be provided at that time depending upon the robustness of the data and scientific evidence”.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Covid-19 will subsequently become an endemic like influenza: ICMR

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

Experts from Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said that the Covid-19 will subsequently reach its endemic stage, just like influenza, that is, it will always be present in a certain population or region. Mutations are normal, and there is nothing to panic about, they said.

Dr Samiran Panda, head of Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, ICMR, said, “The Covid-19 virus will reach its endemic stage like influenza after a while and then vulnerable population may have to take the vaccine shot annually.”

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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MSG enters with agreement to mfg, market 2-DG

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

MSN Laboratories has signed a license agreement with the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) for the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of Covid-19 drug 2-DG in India.

MSN said it will be launching the drug under the brand name MSN 2D in sachet form as a twice a day product in strength of 2.24 g.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Canada reports new cases of Lambda variant, says Chief Public Health Officer

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

Canada’s chief public health officer said that there are cases of the latest Lambda Covid-19 variant in the country, but it’s too early to know how widespread it is or what impact it could have.

Dr. Theresa Tam said Thursday 11 cases of the Lambda variant that was first identified in Peru last year have been reported to Health Canada to date. However, the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec said Thursday it has confirmed 27 cases already, all in March and April.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is monitoring Lambda to see how it spreads and how it responds to vaccines, Tam said.

We’re just trying to gather up some information on who it is that’s having the Lambda variant right now, but there’s very few cases at this point, she said.

Early studies, including one from New York University published July 2, suggest Lambda may be a bit resistant to antibodies produced by the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, but concluded it is not by enough to cause a significant loss of protection against infection.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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Mankind Pharma receives making and marketing license for 2-DG from DRDO

by Medically Speaking Team July 9, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

Mankind Pharma said it has received the licence from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to manufacture and market oral 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), used for the treatment of COVID-19. 2-DG was developed by the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE), Gwalior. The clinical trials were conducted by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a lab of DRDO, in association with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Mankind Pharma said in a statement. The company will manufacture the product at its facilities in Visakhapatnam and Himachal Pradesh, it added.

The office of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on May 1 had permitted the emergency use of 2-DG as an adjunct treatment for moderate to severe COVID-19 patients, Mankind Pharma said. The drug is found to help the hospitalised COVID-19 patients recover faster and is also known to reduce the supplemental oxygen dependency among the COVID-19 patients, it added.

‘Our objective behind this agreement is to ensure maximum reach of this medication to the deserving Indian patients suffering from the deadly pandemic,’ the company said.

July 9, 2021 0 comment

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AI tool measures fat around the heart to predict a patient’s risk of diabetes

by Medically Speaking Team July 8, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

A team led by researchers from Queen Mary University of London has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is able to automatically measure the amount of fat around the heart from MRI scan images.

Using the new tool, the team was able to show that a larger amount of fat around the heart is associated with significantly greater odds of diabetes, independent of a person’s age, sex, and body mass index.

The research is published in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine and is the result of funding from the CAP-AI programme, which is led by Barts Life Sciences, a research and innovation partnership between Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health NHS Trust.

The distribution of fat in the body can influence a person’s risk of developing various diseases. The commonly used measure of body mass index (BMI) mostly reflects fat accumulation under the skin, rather than around the internal organs. In particular, there are suggestions that fat accumulation around the heart may be a predictor of heart disease, and has been linked to a range of conditions, including atrial fibrillation, diabetes, and coronary artery disease.

Unfortunately, manual measurement of the amount of fat around the heart is challenging and time-consuming. For this reason, to date, no-one has been able to investigate this thoroughly in studies of large groups of people.
To address this problem, we’ve invented an AI tool that can be applied to standard heart MRI scans to obtain a measure of the fat around the heart automatically and quickly, in under three seconds. This tool can be used by future researchers to discover more about the links between the fat around the heart and disease risk, but also potentially in the future, as part of a patient’s standard care in hospital.”
Dr Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, Lead Researcher, Queen Mary University of London

The research team tested the AI algorithm’s ability to interpret images from heart MRI scans of more than 45,000 people, including participants in the UK Biobank, a database of health information from over half a million participants from across the UK. The team found that the AI tool was accurately able to determine the amount of fat around the heart in those images, and it was also able to calculate a patient’s risk of diabetes.

Dr Andrew Bard from Queen Mary University of London, who led the technical development, added: “The AI tool also includes an in-built method for calculating uncertainty of its own results, so you could say it has an impressive ability to mark its own homework.”

Professor Steffen Petersen from Queen Mary University of London, who supervised the project, said: “This novel tool has high utility for future research and, if clinical utility is demonstrated, may be applied in clinical practice to improve patient care. This work highlights the value of cross-disciplinary collaborations in medical research, particularly within cardiovascular imaging.”

CAP-AI is led by Capital Enterprise in partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust and Digital Catapult and The Alan Turing Institute and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Barts Charity.

Source: Queen Mary University of London

July 8, 2021 0 comment

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Ayush ministry dismisses claims of liver damage linked to Ayurvedic herb ‘Giloy’

by Medically Speaking Team July 8, 2021

written by Medically Speaking Team

The Ministry of Ayush has refuted the claims made in a study that the use of the Ayurvedic herb TinosporaCordifolia (TC), generally called Giloy or Guduchi, led to liver failure in six patients in Mumbai.

The study, which was widely reported in the media, was published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology, a peer-reviewed journal of the Indian National Association for the study of liver.

Disputing the findings of the study, the ministry said in a statement on July 7 that it looks like the authors of the study failed to put down all essential details of the said cases in an organised pattern.

“Apart from this, relating Giloy or TC to liver damage would be misleading and disastrous to the Traditional Medicine system of India as herb Guduchi or Giloy has been used in Ayurveda since long. The efficacy of TC in managing various disorders is well established,” it noted.

After reviewing the study, the Ayush ministry also observed that the authors of the study did not analyse the herb’s contents consumed by the patients.

“It becomes the responsibility of the authors to ascertain that the herb consumed by the patients is TC and not any other herb. To build upon the soundness, the authors would have taken the opinion of a botanist or would have consulted an Ayurveda expert,” the ministry said.

“In fact, there are many studies that point out that identifying the herb not correctly could lead to wrong results. A similar-looking herb TinosporoCrispa might have a negative effect on the liver. So, before labelling a herb such as Giloy with such toxic nature, the authors should of tried to correctly identify the plants following the standard guidelines, which they did not,” it added.

Giloy is known to have immune boosting properties and is one of the most commonly prescribed medicines in Ayurveda.

The Ayush ministry also said that the study did not take into account the large number of peer-reviewed and robust studies that validated the efficacy of T.Cordifolia and did not consult any reputed Ayurveda expert or the Ministry of Ayush on the matter.

July 8, 2021 0 comment

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