With 2,487 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India’s tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,31,21,599 while the active cases dipped to 17,692, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday.

The death toll climbed to 5,24,214 with 13 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.74 per cent, the ministry said.

A decrease of 404 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.61 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 0.62 per cent, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,25,79,693, while the case fatality rate was 1.22 per cent.

The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 191.32 crore.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year.

The 13 new fatalities include eight from Kerala, four from Delhi and one from Maharashtra.

A total of 5,24,214 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,47,854 from Maharashtra, 69,363 from Kerala, 40,105 from Karnataka, 38,025 from Tamil Nadu, 26,192 from Delhi, 23,513 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,203 from West Bengal.

The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

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About 48 million people in the U.S. have hearing loss, but only one in five who could benefit from a hearing aid actually use one.

The Hearing Loss Association of America anticipates over-the-counter hearing aids may be available in stores by the end of this year, following years of delays after legislation was passed in 2017.

This week, during Better Hearing and Speech Month, we’re talking to audiologist Kristy Kurtz about what you need to know before buying over-the-counter hearing aids, the impact of unaddressed hearing loss over time, and hearing loss prevention.

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For those who dread the famously gross liquid concoction required before a colonoscopy, there is a new option – pills. Lots of them.

Twenty-four to be exact, to be taken the night before and the day of a colonoscopy, which is recommended for everyone over the age of 45.

Sutab ™, approved by the FDA in 2020 and available through Hartford HealthCare Digestive Health Center providers, works the same way as liquid prep, serving as a laxative to clear the bowels for the test.

Patients take a total of 24 tablets—12 the night before and 12 the day of the screening.  Pill prep is not recommended for people who have a history of heart disease or kidney disease or for people who have difficulty swallowing.

“It’s really based on patient preference,” said Joseph Ianello, MD, a gastroenterologist with Connecticut GI and the Hartford HealthCare Digestive Health Center.

Patients who opt for the pills still need to follow the same preparation requirements for their colonoscopy starting the day before, including not eating solid food, consuming only clear liquids and not eating or drinking anything two hours before the procedure.

Dr. Ianello recommends patients take three or four pills every 15 minutes the night before and the morning of the procedure. He says while patients still need to hydrate while taking the pills – which are about the size of a large vitamin pill – it’s a better option for those who don’t want to drink that lukewarm, salty prep.

“Some people equate the taste of liquid prep to seawater. [Pharmaceutical companies] have tried to flavor them to make them a little more tolerable,” Ianello said. “We’ve tried different strategies like having patients chill the liquid or drink it with a straw to make it more palatable. But some people would prefer not to consume that much liquid.”

Sutab and other pill prep regimens are covered by most insurance plans.

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FRIDAY, May 13, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Inflammation during hospitalization for an initial COVID-19 episode is associated with an increased risk for 12-month mortality, according to a study published online May 12 in Frontiers in Medicine.

Arch G. Mainous III, Ph.D., from the University of Florida in Gainesville, and colleagues analyzed electronic health records for patients from Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021, for COVID-19-positive hospitalized adults. A total of 1,207 patients were followed for 12 months post-COVID-19 to examine the association between systemic inflammation and 12-month mortality risk.

The researchers found that elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) was associated with other indicators of the severity of COVID-19 hospitalization such as supplemental oxygen and intravenous dexamethasone. There was an association seen for elevated CRP with increased mortality risk after COVID-19 recovery. When CRP was split into high and low groups at the median, this effect persisted in unadjusted and adjusted analyses (hazard ratios, 1.60 and 1.61, respectively). Oral steroid prescriptions at discharge were associated with a reduced risk for death postdischarge (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.49).

“When someone has a cold or even pneumonia, we usually think of the illness being over once the patient recovers. This is different from a chronic disease, like congestive heart failure or diabetes, which continue to affect patients after an acute episode. We may similarly need to start thinking of COVID-19 as having ongoing effects in many parts of the body after patients have recovered from the initial episode,” Mainous said in a statement. “Once we recognize the importance of ‘long COVID’ after seeming ‘recovery,’ we need to focus on treatments to prevent later problems, such as strokes, brain dysfunction, and especially premature death.”

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In a May 10 Instagram post, Ms. Juicy’s agency updated fans on her hospital stay “Ms. Juicy is still in the ICU and appreciates your prayers and well wishes,” the statement began. Her representatives also shared words from the reality star herself. “Ms. Juicy states, ‘I’m still the Queen of Atlanta boo.'” The caption of the post appeared to be written by the star herself and shut down any speculation on her situation.

Ms. Juicy’s sister Tanya Evans also laid rumors to rest about her health issues. She created a Gofundme to raise money for her mounting bills. On the Gofundme page, she revealed that Ms. Juicy suffered a stroke on April 28 and is still in recovery. “She has just been moved from ICU but is still in the hospital recovering for what we know will be a long road,” her announcement read in part. The Gofundme currently has a goal of raising $25,000.

Evans got candid about the support the reality star will need as she gets back on her feet. “Although we don’t have a definitive date of when she will be out of the hospital and be able to get back to work, we do need your help until she recovers.”

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WEDNESDAY, May 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Subcutaneous implantable defibrillators (S-ICDs) reduce the risk of lead-related complications by more than 90 percent, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society, held from April 29 to May 1 in San Francisco.

Jeff Healey, M.D., from the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and colleagues randomly assigned ICD-eligible patients (<60 years old), with a cardiogenetic syndrome or at high risk for lead-related complications, to an S-ICD (251 patients) or transvenous (TV)-ICD (252 patients). Major lead-related complications occurring within six months of implantation were compared between the groups.

The researchers found that major lead complications occurred in one patient (0.4 percent) with S-ICD versus 12 (4.8 percent) with TV-ICD (odds ratio, 0.08; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.00 to 0.55; P = 0.003). While not a significant difference, there was a trend toward more inappropriate shocks with S-ICD versus TV-ICD (6.4 versus 2.8 percent; odds ratio, 2.38; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.96 to 5.90) and failed appropriate clinical shocks (3.2 versus 2.0 percent). There was no significant difference seen in sudden death between the groups (0.8 and 1.2 percent, respectively).

“The S-ICD greatly reduces perioperative, lead-related complications without significantly compromising ICD performance,” Healey said in a statement. “The S-ICD is now an attractive alternative to the TV-ICD, particularly in patients at increased risk for lead-related complications.”

The study was funded by Boston Scientific.

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TUESDAY, May 10, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Today’s H1N1 flu — commonly known as the swine flu — appears to be a direct descendent of the influenza virus that caused the catastrophic 1918 pandemic, a new analysis shows.

Genetic data drawn from 1918 flu samples recently discovered in Germany suggests that all genomic segments of the seasonal H1N1 flu could be directly descended from that terrible initial strain, the researchers said.

“The subsequent seasonal flu virus that went on circulating after the pandemic might well have directly evolved from the pandemic virus entirely,” said senior researcher Sebastien Calvignac-Spencer, an evolutionary biologist with the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

If correct, this new theory contradicts other hypotheses that have held that today’s seasonal flu emerged through different viruses sharing their genetic code, the study authors noted.

This study began when Calvignac-Spencer and his colleagues uncovered a rare set of lung tissue specimens dated between 1900 and 1931, all preserved within the Berlin Museum of Medical History and the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria.

From those lung specimens, the investigators were able to develop a complete flu genome from a sample collected in Munich in 1918, as well as two partial flu genomes collected in Berlin that same year.

“These data are important,” Calvignac-Spencer said. “The 1918 pandemic affected more than half of mankind and killed 50 to 100 million people, but at the time we started this work there were only 18 specimens from which sequences were available and only two complete genomes, and most from the U.S.,” he explained.

Applying a “molecular clock” model, the researchers compared the 1918 flu genetics to those of today’s seasonal flu.

The team found that seasonal H1N1 and the 1918 viruses “cluster together,” indicating that the initial strain of influenza continued to evolve on its own in humans, birds and mammals rather than combine with other viruses, eventually becoming one of today’s major flu strains.

For example, the 1918 influenza was known to have entered the pig population during that pandemic, and was maintained as a flu strain that only affected swine, said co-researcher Thorsten Wolff, head of influenza and respiratory virus research at the Robert Koch Institute.

Then in 2009, that strain jumped back into humans, creating that year’s swine flu outbreak, Wolff said.

The team’s findings were published online May 10 in the journal Nature Communications.

The work of these “viral archeologists” helps explain why the 2009 swine flu varied in how it affected younger people worse than older folks, said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

“That was a virus that hit more children and middle-aged and young adults,” Schaffner said. “In contrast to what flu usually does, which has its greatest impact on older people, older people were spared, relatively speaking,” he noted.

“There were data generated at that time suggesting that was because they had had experience, some of them, with either this early H1N1 virus that goes back to 1918 or its successors,” Schaffner continued. “And so these data fit very nicely into those epidemiologic investigations.”

It also helps explain why the worst flu seasons tend to come when the H3N2 “Hong Kong” influenza strain is dominant, since it’s a newer strain against which people have less natural and vaccine-developed immunity, Schaffner added.

“The current influenza vaccines that we’re using work better against the H1N1 strains than the H3N2,” Schaffner said. “Obviously this virus has mutated and picked up genetic elements from swine and from birds so it’s not the identical virus, but it’s clearly a progeny, one of the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren.”

There is evidence that the 1918 flu evolved during successive waves of that pandemic, much as the COVID-19 coronavirus has done during the modern pandemic, Calvignac-Spencer said.

Calvignac-Spencer and Schaffner both cautioned that influenza and coronavirus come from two entirely different and unrelated families of virus, so it’s hard to draw direct lessons from what happened in 1918 versus today.

However, Schaffner noted that more recent COVID strains like Omicron tend to be more infectious but produce somewhat less severe disease in people who’ve been vaccinated or previously infected.

“So there may be something roughly analogous going on with COVID,” Schaffner said. “There’s a general truth — the more we learn about viruses and how they function, we’ll be able to make even better vaccines going into the future.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about the 1918 flu pandemic.

SOURCES: Sebastien Calvignac-Spencer, evolutionary biologist, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany; Thorsten Wolff, head, influenza and respiratory virus research, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany; William Schaffner, MD, medical director, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Md.; Nature Communications, May 10, 2022, online

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Guwahati: Various health and wellness campaigns of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have not been confined only to urban centres but reached the rural areas of the country as well, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said here on Monday.

The Centre has also improved health infrastructure across the country, he said.

Programmes such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Fit India Mission, Jal Jeevan Mission, ‘Poshan’ scheme (midday meal) and ‘Indradhanush’ (children’s immunisation scheme) are steps to help people enjoy better health and prevent them from falling sick, Shah said.

These campaigns are not ”urban-centric but have percolated to the rural areas as well”, he said after inaugurating a super-speciality centre for neuroscience and cardiothoracic diseases here.

The allocation for the health sector in the Union budget has been increased to Rs 86,200 crore this year as against the previous year’s Rs 73, 931 crore, Shah said.

The Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme has given a new lease of life to the poor people, Shah said.

”India has emerged as a fast developing nation and in the health sector too, it has made great strides,” the union home minister added.

He said when there was no vaccine against Covid-19, the world had doubts ”whether we can produce it and when that was done, they were sceptical about how it would be provided to people. We used technology and with the COWIN app, we were successful in reaching out to a large section of the population,” he said,

He congratulated Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his initiative to improve health facilities in the state both as the health minister in the previous government and now as the leader of the present NDA government.

”Assam has emerged as a prime healthcare centre which will benefit not only the people of the state and other North-eastern states but also patients from the neighbouring countries,” Shah said.

He also praised the state government for its initiatives to provide free treatment to over 28,000 children with congenital heart diseases and the ‘Mission Smile’ which has led over 20,000 children with cleft lips to get operated on and lead a normal life, he added.

Shah said that he was glad to inaugurate the super-speciality hospital on the eve of the first anniversary of the Sarma-led NDA government in the state.

The hospital, set up for Rs 272.95 crore, is a 300-bed facility with modern equipment and amenities for cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery.

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Until recently, most same-sex parents could not simply fill out the traditional form to record their child’s birth after delivery, and were instead forced to wait for a separate form distinguishing them as a same-sex couple.

On January 1, 2022, however, the Connecticut Parentage Act merged the two forms into one that is now presented to every family after a birth.

“This new law benefits all families,” said Lidia Agramonte-Gomez, a perinatal social worker at Hartford Hospital. “Rather than just allow for the establishment of paternity of a child, this law allows for the establishment of parentage, taking into account not only same-sex couples but the different ways in which a child can be conceived. It also provides an avenue for couples who have been together and the non-legal parent of the child has, in essence, taken on all the responsibilities of parenthood but could not be legally recognized as a parent of the child.”

The law, state officials announced, “aims to ensure each child has a clear path to secure their legal parentage” while providing greater protection and equal treatment for children of LGBTQ+ parents. The Acknowledgement of Parentage form will also protect children born through assisted reproduction, or surrogacy, and does not require a child’s legal parents to be over 18.

Terminology in the law addresses the often complicated layers of parentage, which can be genetic or what is called “presumed.” An intended parent is someone consenting to assisted reproduction with the intent of being a parent to the child. A presumed parent is a non-birth parent recognized by the law as part of same-sex relationships.

Signing the Acknowledgement of Parentage form determines the parents to list on the child’s birth certificate, which enables them to make medical decisions for the child and protects their parental rights if the couple later separates.

“This is a strong move to protect the children of LGBTQ parents, giving those parents a simple way to solidify their legal parentage,” said Laura Saunders, PsyD, ABPP, co-medical director of the Hartford HealthCare Gender Health Center.

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A potentially fatal tick-borne disease has been identified for the first time this year in Connecticut.

The Department of Public Health announced today, May 4, that a Windham man between the ages of 50-59 became ill in the first week of March, and lab tests confirmed he had Powassan virus (POWV), which is usually spread by blacklegged or deer ticks.  The patient was hospitalized with a central nervous system disease and has since returned home.

A Maine man died of POMV last month. Of the 12 cases in Connecticut since 2017, two were fatal.

“The identification of a Connecticut resident with Powassan virus associated illness emphasizes the need to take actions to prevent tick bites from now through the late fall,” said DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD. “Using insect repellent, avoiding areas where ticks are likely, and checking carefully for ticks after being outside can reduce the chance of you or your children being infected with this virus.”

Most people with POMV don’t experience symptoms or they are mild, but some may develop severe illness affecting the central nervous system with symptoms such as fever, vomiting, headache, weakness, difficulty speaking or seizures.

Health officials are urging people to take standard precautions that they would for Lyme disease or other tick-related illnesses.

William Horgan, MD, MBA, Medical Director of Quality and Safety at Backus and Windham hospitals, said checking yourself and your pets for ticks each time you come inside from the outdoors is the most important way to prevent tick-borne illnesses.

He added that now is the time to pay attention because there are three times of year when ticks are most prevalent – late April and early May is when adult, black legged ticks emerge; juvenile ticks become active in late June and early July; and adults again in late October and early November.

Ulysses Wu, MD, Hartford HealthCare’s Chief Epidemiologist and Medical Director of Infectious Disease, said there is no treatment for POMV, but people shouldn’t panic. Dr. Wu said people should take the same precautions they would for Lyme disease, including wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts, using repellant and checking for ticks regularly on yourself and your pets.

For more information on preventing tick bites, click here.

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