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REALPOLITIK
Need for an offensive war on the new pandemicJagdish N Singh Bill Gates The world today in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the reports collected at the time of writing this column , global coronavirus infections have reached around 2.2 million with the death toll of about 145,000. The numbers of the infected are 667,801 in the United States, 182,816 in Spain, 168,941 in Italy, 165,027 in France and 130,450 in Germany. In the United States the pandemic has claimed over 23,000 lives. Israel has 3,865 confirmed coronavirus cases. The number of confirmed coronavirus-infected patients across India is relatively low at present. It has recorded around 17265 cases of COVID-19 and around 543 deaths. This number is likely to rise many times over when adequate tests are conducted in the country. So far only about 10 in a million people have been tested. Eminent business magnet and software developer Bill Gates has warned Africa might witness over 10 million deaths if the coronavirus spreads to the continent.
Stranded workers on the way to their native places
Knowledgeable sources say such pandemics know no
national boundaries. All nations must be transparent in
sharing information on the pandemic and make appropriate
efforts. The Modi Government needs to deal with the crisis
very wisely. India needs to launch an offensive war on the
pandemic. The Government must appropriately increase its budgetary allocation to the health sector. India has to be
prepared to treat well all potential coronavirus cases across
the country. The country has just over 70,000- 100,000 intensive care unit beds. It does not have a sufficient number
of ventilators. India needs a lot more. She needs to focus on
the testing, isolation and containment of specific socioeconomic
segments who have been central to carrying and
spreading the virus. Search for vaccines
Henry A Kissinger
In one of his recent articles, former
American National Security Advisor and
Secretary of State Henry A Kissinger has
calculated a successful vaccine to treat
the coronavirus patient might be 12 to 18
months away. I am, however , much more
optimistic about the discovery of an
appropriate vaccine to treat the new virus
. According to reports, there are more
than five dozen vaccines under
development across the world. A low- cost test kit
Minal Dakhave Bhosale
Young scientist Minal Dakhave
Bhosale of the Pune-based
molecular diagnostic company
Mylab Discovery deserves
applause of the whole world for
having designed and developed
the coronavirus testing kit called
Patho Detect in just six weeks. Reaching out to AmericaNarendra Modi At a time when an appropriate vaccine is yet to be developed to treat the growing number of c o r o n a v i r u s - positive cases in the United States, its President Donald Trump must be finding India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu very helpful. New Delhi and Jerusalem are supplying to the United States some of the drugs that are being considered useful in absence of the appropriate ones that are under invention . Donald Trump Last month New Delhi eased restrictions on the export of its vital generic drugs, including Hydroxychloroquine, to the United State. Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli generic drug giant Teva is providing 10 million doses of its hydroxychloroquine drug to American hospitals free of charge. Of that, over six million doses of the drug have already been delivered. Teva has also indicated that it would conduct research to see if any other drug from out of its catalogue of 3,500 can be used to fight the coronavirus. |