Indian Health Minister claimed that there is no scientific evidence that proves that COVID-19 transmission can happen via newspapers.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in a virtual public interaction told people not to afraid of taking newspapers. He said there is no scientific evidence to show can Corona can transmit via newspapers. He said reading newspaper is completely safe even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the shortage of medical oxygen, he said there is no shortage in Medical Oxygen; Current oxygen production capacity of India is around 6400 MT/Day; the Government is ready to scale up the production capacity in order to meet any further increase in demand arising due to the Pandemic.
The Empowered Group constituted by MHA is monitoring the requirement of medical oxygen across India and The Ministry of Health is also monitoring the availability and supply of Medical Oxygen at the field level through regular VC with State Nodal officers for oxygen as well as with Principal Secretaries or Mission directors, the minister said.
1,02,400 Medical Oxygen Cylinders have been delivered to States and UTs; The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has fixed the price of Liquid Medical Oxygen and Guidelines on ‘Rational use of Oxygen for management of COVID-19’ have also been issued.
On the availability of COVID-19 Vaccine, Harsh Vardhan remarked that although there are no intranasal COVID-19 vaccines under trial in India at the moment, Serum India and Bharat Biotech are expected to pursue clinical trials of such vaccines in India in the coming months on receipt of regulatory approval.
The Phase III Clinical Trial is generally with thousands of participants, sometimes even close to 30,000 to 40,000 participants. It is possible that from a specific city or hospital, a couple of hundred participants are selected at a given time, but in general, the overall Phase III participant pool is much larger.
Sharing details on the Special Drive for ADVERSE Drug Reaction (ADR) reporting and monitoring of drugs used in COVID-19, Dr Harsh Vardhan clarified that this special drive is not because of an adverse reaction reported with an existing drug, but is part of a proactive COVID-19 preparedness programme.
The Union Minister for Science & Technology, and Earth Science explained that the Integrated Flood Warning Systems developed for Mumbai and Chennai are city-specific prediction systems to cater the needs of coastal cities which will be extended to Kolkata. For states like Assam and Bihar, that have river-based floods, Central Water Commission generates flood warning based on the rainfall forecast provided by IMD.
Sharing an update on the demonstration plant developed by CSIR-IIP and GAIL in Dehradun that he inaugurated in 2019, the Minister apprised the audience that at full capacity utilization, it can produce about 800 litres of BS-VI quality diesel per day from 1000 kg waste plastics.
The Minister said that in the last six years, the Department of Science and Technology through its various schemes especially targeting women scientists, has contributed to improving gender ratio and the improvement is evident today especially at the lower level in scientific establishments. Not only has the percentage of women contributing to science education at the school level increased significantly but also the percentage of women in government laboratories has also increased.
In order to further improve the situation, the DST is increasingly boosting its interventions for the participation of women in S&T at multiple levels through various new schemes.
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