In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-Press release by World Health Organisation, dated 6th May, 2021 * Initial 11 members are distinguished experts in economics, health, government, finance and development from around the world. * Council’s focus is on new strategies to shape economies and financial systems with the objective of building healthy societies that are just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable. It will incorporate lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. * Council will hold its first meeting on 6...

-The Hindu Business Line Kerala’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the subject of international conversation about public health systems. Piloting Kerala’s fight against the pandemic is the State’s Health Minister and CPI(M)’s Central Committee member KK Shailaja who speaks exclusively to BusinessLine about the criticality of publicly-run healthcare and how the need of the hour is to nationalise the system. Excerpts: * What are the lessons to be learnt from...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s guidelines for managing COVID-19 ignore evidence, pricing, cost-effectiveness and social relevance. The Health Ministry released its first COVID-19 management guidelines about a year ago. The initial treatment guidelines included hydroxychloroquine, which led to panic buying of the drug. Little was known in those initial months. In the last one year, multiple studies have proven the lack of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. While most practitioners have moved away from...

-PTI/ The Hindu The PMGKP was announced on March last year, and was extended thrice till April 24, the ministry said. The Union Health Ministry on Monday announced that all claims of “COVID warriors” under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package will be settled till April 24 after which a fresh insurance policy for them will become effective. In a tweet, the ministry said that a new dispensation will be provided to cover...