MONTHLY NEWSLETTER DBMCI – APRIL 2021

National Medical Updates

• Jaipur: JK Lon hospital launches ‘Atlas’ of rare diseases which included 75 rare disease cases who were worked up and diagnosed at Rare Disease centre, J K Lon Hospital, Jaipur like Progeria and Ataxia telangiectasia. Rare diseases currently affect 3.5% – 5.9% of the worldwide population.
• Researchers in Microbiology and Cell Biology of the country’s premier research institute, Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) have found a new, faster and more efficient way to detect whether a person has active Tuberculosis (TB) by using their immune response to certain proteins unique to the TB bacilli.
• The new research was published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal published by Oxford University Press, London in its latest edition
• All India Institute of Medical Sciences has decided to conduct the virtual autopsy, wherever possible. Under this process, the body is packed in a bag and put in a CT scan machine. The images obtained can be analyzed by forensic experts.
• The Phase 1 human clinical trials of Hyderabad-based vaccine maker Bharat Biotech Intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, codenamed BBV154, have commenced at some of the selected sites that include Hyderabad and Nagpur, Patna, Chennai.

New Guidelines

• Those who take the Covid-19 vaccine cannot donate blood for nearly two months. The National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) has recently released guidelines stating that one cannot donate blood from the day of taking the first dose of the vaccine till 28 days after the second dose (Notification issued on 5th March 2021).

International Medical Updates

• The United States has notified that India has been added to the list of countries that have been affected by African swine fever, imposing restrictions on the import of pork and pork products from the country.

• Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund had reached an agreement with India’s Virchow Biotech to produce up to 200 million doses a year of the Sputnik V vaccine in India.

• Drug major Lupin has launched Nitazoxanide tablets (500 mg), a generic version to be used to treat diarrhoea, in the US market. These are indicated in the treatment of diarrhoea caused by Giardia lamblia or Cryptosporidium parvum in patients 12 years of age and older.