-The Hindu Until trial results are out, countries like India must focus on interventions such as largescale testing, isolation, contact-tracing, and physical distancing, says Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health Madhukar Pai, is Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health and Director, McGill Global Health Programs and Professor at McGill University. In an email interview to The Hindu, he explains the debate on BCG Vaccine’s purported effectiveness...

-The Hindu Lockdowns alone can’t be effective unless combined with other health measures, says the WHO Chief Scientist. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation, tells The Hindu in an interview that the fight against COVID-19 is likely to be long-term, and lockdowns alone cannot be effective unless combined with other public health measures. Dr. Swaminathan, who has worked in research on tuberculosis and HIV for 30 years, was...

-The Hindu Former Union Health Secretary says the infection has come mainly from those middle-class people who have been abroad and come back to India K. Sujatha Rao served as Union Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the Indian government, until 2010, where she was involved in the process for a national policy for use of antibiotics, introducing Vaccines in public health, and the first-ever national programme for non-communicable diseases....

-The Hindu Apart from vaccination, this has to involve efficient vector control and proper case management The advent of a new tetravalent Vaccine against the dengue virus has thrown new light into the evidence-based management of dengue. An article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that this Vaccine confers about 80% protection to children vaccinated between 4 and 16 years of age without any major side effects. It...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s over-dependence on private players for Vaccines is promoting irrational use and restricting access that leads to unacceptable fatalities The death of an eight-year-old girl, Anju, this August after denial of anti-rabies Vaccine at Agra’s Sarojini Naidu Medical College (SNMC) is followed by the admission by Health Ministry that fatality rate for rabies in India is 100 per cent. Although the circumstance of Anju’s death is particularly Kafkaesque...