September 25, 2020

J&J vaccine in phase-3 trails


 The Indian Express

Panacea Biotec completes Phase I/II study of DengiAll vaccine

DengiAll is a single-dose live-attenuated tetravalent vaccine

Drug firm Panacea Biotec on Thursday said it has successfully completed Phase I/II clinical study to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of its DengiAll vaccine.

According to the World Health Organization, dengue represents one of the 10 biggest global health threats and it is critical to have access to a safe and effective vaccine candidate that can reduce the devastating impact of dengue fever in endemic regions, Panacea Biotec said in a BSE filing.

DengiAll is a single-dose live-attenuated tetravalent vaccine. “Lt induced robust, balanced neutralising antibody responses against all the four dengue virus serotypes”, it said.

“DengiAll’s Phase I/II study results are even more important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-infection of dengue and COVID-19 in a dengue-endemic India may complicate approach to treatment and strain health care infrastructure,” Panacea Biotec MD Rajesh Jain said.

The company has already approached the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to seek accelerated review of its data to bring DengiAll to market quickly and reduce burden on the country’s healthcare infrastructure, he added.

Shares of Panacea Biotec were trading at Rs 196.80 per scrip on BSE, up 4.99 percent from its previous close. 

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/health/panacea-biotec-completes-phase-i-ii-study-of-dengiall-vaccine-145904   

September 01, 2020

US FDA says could approve vaccine before phase 3 trail



Source: The Indian Express

 

Covid-19: What you need to know today

This column has often mentioned the similarities between the spread of the coronavirus disease

in the US and India, both geographically large and populous countries. The US is larger than

India; and India is more populous than the US. But there is a big difference — one that points

to a mystery in the Indian numbers.

Across US states, there is a significant similarity in terms of the number of cases per 100,000

people. The vast difference between the absolute number of cases in the US and India makes

comparisons difficult, but it is possible to look for similarities within the countries.

The difference (per 100,000 people; and from here on, wherever this column refers to cases it

is per 100,000 of the population) between the state ranked first (Louisiana) and the state ranked

20th is a third of the number of cases in the first. And many of the states in the top 10 (excluding

Louisiana) are clustered within 20% of the cases in the state with the second highest number

of cases, Florida. The difference between Louisiana and the state ranked 40th is 43% of the

number of cases in the former.

In India, Delhi is the city-state with the most number of cases per 100,000 people (875; this

analysis has excluded smaller states and Union Territories). It is followed by Andhra Pradesh

(813), Maharashtra (640), Tamil Nadu (557), Karnataka (510), and Telangana (330). The

difference per 100,000 cases between Delhi and Telangana is around 62% of the number of

cases in the former. The numbers drop off sharply after that.

Indeed, some of India’s most populous states figure towards the bottom of the list — West

Bengal, with 165 cases per 100,000; Bihar with 113; and Uttar Pradesh (100). At the national

level, India has 271 cases per 100,000 of the population. All numbers are from HT’s dashboard

as of Sunday night.

Testing explains some of this. For instance, India had tested 31,741 people per million of its

population till Sunday night. But Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal had tested only 24,404,

25913, and 19043 people per million respectively. In a country that is a laggard when it comes

to testing, these states are in the lower quartile in terms of tests per million. Among the 10

countries ranked by the most cases in the world, only Mexico tests fewer per million than India.

In the 20 countries ranked by the most cases, only four (Mexico, Argentina, Bangladesh and

Pakistan) test fewer people per million.

But testing doesn’t explain it all. On Sunday, for instance, Uttar Pradesh carried out the most

tests but its positivity rate was among the lowest—4.42%. Bihar’s was lower still (1.92%) and

it carried out the most tests after Uttar Pradesh. Even West Bengal’s, on a much lower base of

tests, was around 7%. In contrast, Tamil Nadu, which carried out the third highest number of

tests after Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Sunday, saw a positivity rate of 7.8%. And Maharashtra,

which carried out the fourth highest number of tests, saw a positivity rate of 22%. Delhi saw a

positivity rate of 9.9%.

Among these states, Delhi has seen its positivity rate plunge (from highs in the early 30s to

lows in the 5-7% range) before it started climbing again. Tamil Nadu was an early convert to

the merits of aggressive testing, but while the positivity rate has come off its peaks, the state is

clearly on a long plateau. As for the rest, their positivity rates aren’t, in most part, seeing the

kind of trend that should be seen with more testing — a rise, a long plateau, and a fall.

Some of the disparity between Indian states can be explained by the first wave of infections

largely being restricted to the large urban centres. But this newspaper has written about how

that is changing with 55.3% of the cases in the third million (India ended Monday with 3.68

million cases) coming from rural districts. The mystery, then, is that large states such as Uttar

Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal are not seeing the kind of numbers they should.

SPREAD OF cases WITHIN COUNTRIES

The virus is relatively evenly spread in the US. The difference between Louisiana (the state

with most per-capita cases) and the state ranked 40th is 43% of the cases in the former. In India,

the gap in cases per 100,000 residents between Delhi, which has the most per-capita cases, and

Telangana is around 62%

WHO’S TESTING MORE?

India had tested 31,741 people per million till Sunday night. Among the 10 countries ranked

by the most cases in the world, only Mexico tests fewer per million than India

RURAL SHIFT

The disparity between India’s states can be explained by the first wave of infections largely

being restricted to urban centres. But that is changing as more than half the cases in the third

million have come from rural districts.


https://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Home/ArticleView

Antiviral drug for cats may help humans fight COVID-19

The drug is a protease inhibitor that interferes with the virus's ability to replicate, thus ending

an infection, the study published in the journal Nature Communications reported. iStock

Researchers are preparing to launch clinical trials of a drug used to cure a deadly disease caused

by coronavirus in cats that they expect will be effective as a treatment for humans against

Covid-19.

"In just two months, our results have shown that the drug is effective at inhibiting viral

replication in cells with SARS-CoV-2," said a study researcher Joanne Lemieux from the

University of Alberta (UA) in Canada." "This drug is likely to work in humans so we're

encouraged that it will be an effective antiviral treatment for Covid-19 patients," Lemieux

added.

The drug is a protease inhibitor that interferes with the virus's ability to replicate, thus ending

an infection, the study published in the journal Nature Communications reported.

Proteases were key to many body functions and were common targets for drugs to treat

everything from high blood pressure to cancer and HIV. First studied by UA's John Vederas

and Michael James following the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),

the protease inhibitor was further developed by veterinary researchers who showed it cured a

disease that is fatal in cats. The researchers explained that Vederas synthesized the compounds

and researcher Lorne Tyrrell tested them against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in test tubes and

human cell lines.

The research team then revealed the crystal structure of the drug as it binds with the protein.

"We determined the three-dimensional shape of the protease with the drug in the active site

pocket showing the mechanism of inhibition. This allows us to develop even more effective

drugs," Lemieux said.

She will continue to test modifications of the inhibitor to make it a better fit inside the virus,

Lemieux added. But she said the current drug shows enough antiviral action against SARSCoV-

2 to proceed immediately to clinical trials.

"Typically for a drug to go into clinical trials, it has to be confirmed in the lab and then tested

in animal models," Lemieux said.

"Because this drug has already been used to treat cats with coronavirus and it's effective with

little to no toxicity, it's already passed those stages and this allows us to move forward," she

added.

The researchers have established a collaboration with Anivive Life Sciences, a veterinary

medicine company that is developing the drug for cats to produce the quality and quantity of

drug needed for human clinical trials. The team said it will likely be tested in Alberta in

combination with other promising antivirals such as remdesivir.


https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/health/antiviral-drug-for-cats-may-help-humans-fightcovid-

19-132750

Selective abortion in India may lead to 6.8 million fewer girls being born by 2030

Selective abortion in India may lead to 6.8 million fewer girls being born by 2030

Photo for representational purpose only

An estimated 6.8 million fewer female births will be recorded across India by 2030 due to sex selective

abortions, according to a study that projects the highest deficits in the birth of girls

will occur in Uttar Pradesh.

Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi

Arabia, and Universite de Paris, France, noted that there has been a reported imbalance in India

in the sex ratio at birth (SRB) since the 1970s due to the emergence of prenatal sex selection

and the cultural preference for male babies.

Unlike other countries affected by such imbalances, India is unique in its regional diversity of

sex ratio imbalance, they said.

Previous projections of sex ratio at birth in India have been constructed at the national level or

were based primarily on expert opinion rather than reproducible modelling.

In the latest study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers projected the SRB in the

largest 29 Indian States and Union Territories (UTs), which covered 98.4 per cent of the total

population of India as of the year 2011.

Among the 21 Indian States or UTs with high quality birth data, 17 showed a positive effective

of son preference on the SRB, with the highest SRBs concentrated in the most northwestern

States or UTs, the resaerchers said.

The team found that, in particular, the effect of son preference is statistically significant in nine

States or UTs.

“We project that the highest deficits in female births will occur in Uttar Pradesh, with a

cumulative number of missing female births of 2 million from 2017 to 2030,” the researchers

said.

“For the whole of India, summing up the 29 state-level projections, the cumulative number of

missing female births during 2017 to 2030 is projected to be 6.8,” they wrote in the study.

The average annual number of missing female births between 2017 and 2025 is projected to be

469,000 per year and is projected to increase to 519,000 per year for the time period 2026 to

2030, according to the researchers.

The projects represent an essential input for population projection models in India, especially

at the sub-national level, they added.

In India, sex-selective abortions and prenatal sex discernment tests were banned in 1994 under

the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act.



https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/health/selective-abortion-in-india-may-lead-to-6-8-

million-fewer-girls-being-born-by-2030-134201