Music Might Help Soothe Ailing Hearts

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Music Might Help Soothe Ailing Hearts

THURSDAY, May 28, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Music influences people’s heart rates, and one piece of music will affect individuals’ hearts differently, a new, small study shows.

The findings could lead to novel, drug-free treatments for such conditions as high blood pressure and heart rhythm disorders, or to help people relax or stay alert, the researchers said.

Previous studies that examined physical responses to music measured changes in heart rate after participants listened to recordings simply categorized as sad, happy, calm or violent.

This new study of three patients with mild heart failure requiring a pacemaker took a more targeted approach.

During a live, classical piano concert, researchers used the patients’ pacemaker leads to measure the electrical activity of their hearts during significant changes in tempo, volume or rhythm.

“We used precise methods to record the heart’s response to music and found that what is calming for one person can be arousing for another,” said Elaine Chew, a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris.

“Even though two people might have statistically significant changes across the same musical transition, their responses could go in opposite directions. So for one person the musical transition is relaxing, while for another it is arousing or stress-inducing,” Chew said.

For example, someone who doesn’t expect a transition from soft to loud music could find it stressful, while another person might find it relaxing.

The small study was presented recently at the European Society of Cardiology virtual meeting. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“By understanding how an individual’s heart reacts to musical changes, we plan to design tailored music interventions to elicit the desired response,” Chew said in a society news release.

Pier Lambiase, a professor of cardiology at University College London in the U.K., was the study’s medical leader.

He said tailored interventions could be used to reduce blood pressure or lower the risk of heart rhythm disorders without the side effects of medication.

The researchers are now conducting tests with eight patients to further confirm their findings.

— Robert Preidt

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





SLIDESHOW


Heart Disease: Causes of a Heart Attack
See Slideshow

References


SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, news release, May 20, 2020



Source link

As Hard-Hit Areas of America Show Slowing in Coronavirus Cases, Other Regions See Spikes

PressNewsAgency
-
0
As Hard-Hit Areas of America Show Slowing in Coronavirus Cases, Other Regions See Spikes

By Robin Foster and E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporters

FRIDAY, May 29, 2020 (HealthDay News) — While the spread of coronavirus has slowed in some of the hardest-hit areas of America, other parts of the country were seeing worrying spikes in cases by Friday.

New York City, once the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, announced plans Thursday to ease restrictions after 10 weeks under lockdown, the Washington Post reported.

“Restarting won’t mean back to normal — we CAN’T rush back,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Thursday. “We need to keep this virus in check.”

But even as the New York area began to emerge from strict social distancing measures, other states were seeing jumps in COVID-19 cases, the New York Times reported.

Wisconsin saw its highest single-day increase in both cases and deaths just two weeks after the state’s highest court overturned a stay-at-home order; Alabama, Arkansas, California and North Carolina are seeing some of their highest case numbers and death tallies yet; and metropolitan areas like Fayetteville, Ark.; Yuma, Ariz.; and Roanoke and Charlottesville, Va., may soon see new highs in cases and deaths.

As the U.S. coronavirus case count passed 1.7 million and the death toll reached 101,600 on Friday, there was more evidence of the collateral damage the virus has caused: New numbers released Thursday show the number of unemployed has now passed 40 million.

The death toll is “a striking reminder of how dangerous this virus can be,” Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, told the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, safety concerns over a malaria drug that President Donald Trump has touted as a coronavirus treatment prompted the World Health Organization to remove the medication from a global trial of potential COVID-19 therapies earlier this week.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the international health agency’s director-general, said Monday that the WHO decided to take a “pause” in testing hydroxychloroquine after a study published last week in The Lancet medical journal found people who took the drug were more likely to die, the Times reported. Several other studies have found the medication has no benefit and could possibly harm COVID-19 patients.

Regardless, Trump says he has just finished taking a two-week course of the malaria drug to guard against COVID-19 infection after two White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus.

But Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie testified on Thursday before a House subcommittee that the agency has drastically cut the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat veterans with COVID-19, the Post reported.

“We have ratcheted down as we’ve brought more treatments online,” Wilkie, who wore a surgical mask, told the panel. “And I expect that to continue.”

Disappointing drug trials

Hopes for another drug being tested against coronavirus infection have dimmed, after a major, new study found the drug on its own won’t be enough to significantly curb cases and deaths.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that, “given high mortality [of patients] despite the use of remdesivir, it is clear that treatment with an antiviral drug alone is not likely to be sufficient.”

The remdesivir study involved 1,063 COVID-19 patients and was led by Dr. John Beigel and Dr. Clifford Lane at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The researchers found that the drug, delivered by infusion, did help ease the illness: Patients who got the antiviral recovered after an average of 11 days versus 15 days for those who hadn’t received it.

Patients who were so sick they required supplemental oxygen, but did not need a ventilator to breathe, appeared to benefit most from remdesivir.

But the difference in the overall death rate — 7.1% of patients on the drug vs. 11.9% of those who didn’t get it — did not reach statistical significance, the researchers added.

The study does suggest that early treatment works best. “Our findings highlight the need to identify COVID-19 cases and start antiviral treatment before the pulmonary disease progresses to require mechanical ventilation,” the researchers said.

Early evidence had suggested that remdesivir might help fight coronavirus illness, so the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave it “emergency use authorization.”

Already, combinations of remdesivir and other drugs are being tried, to see if dual-drug treatments might boost outcomes even more. For example, one federally funded clinical trial is combining remdesivir with a potent anti-inflammatory drug called baricitinib, while a trial from biotech firm CytoDyn is pairing it with an antiviral called leronlimab.

Vaccine efforts continue

Meanwhile, the search for an effective vaccine goes on. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday it would provide up to $1.2 billion to the drug company AstraZeneca to develop a potential coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University, in England.

The fourth, and largest, vaccine research agreement funds a clinical trial of the potential vaccine in the United States this summer with about 30,000 volunteers, the Times reported.




QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
See Answer

The goal? To make at least 300 million doses that could be available as early as October, the HHS said in a statement.

However, many experts have said that the earliest an effective, mass-produced vaccine would be available won’t be until sometime next year, and billions of doses would be needed worldwide.

On Tuesday, pharmaceutical giant Merck also jumped into the fight against the coronavirus, announcing two separate efforts to develop a vaccine and a partnership to develop a promising antiviral drug that can be taken as a pill, the Times reported.

The United States has already agreed to provide up to $483 million to the biotech company Moderna and $500 million to Johnson & Johnson for their vaccine efforts. It is also providing $30 million to a virus vaccine effort led by the French company Sanofi, the Times reported.

According to a Times tally, the top five states in coronavirus cases as of Friday are: New York with more than 371,500; New Jersey with nearly 158,000; Illinois with over 116,000; California with more than 104,000, and Massachusetts with nearly 95,000.

Of course, testing will be key to further efforts to control the spread of the new coronavirus. But only about 3% of the U.S. population has been tested so far.

Nations grapple with pandemic

In Asia, where the coronavirus first struck, several countries are finally returning to a new normal.

In China, public officials were trying to test all 11 million residents in the city of Wuhan in the hopes they can extinguish any remaining cases of coronavirus in the pandemic’s original epicenter, the Post reported.

But a small cluster of cases in the northeastern province of Jilin has prompted officials to employ many of the strict lockdown measures that were used in Wuhan, the Times reported.

Meanwhile, South Korea on Thursday reported its biggest jump in cases in more than 50 days, the AP reported.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 67 of the 79 new cases reported were from the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live. The government has shut public facilities such as parks, museums and state-run theaters in the metropolitan area for the next two weeks, to stem any further spread of the virus.

Elsewhere, the situation remains challenging. On Friday, the United Kingdom’s coronavirus death count neared 38,000, the second highest in the world, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. Britain has now surpassed Italy, Spain and France for COVID-19 deaths in Europe. Still, Prime Minister Boris Johnson continued to move the country toward a full reopening.

Brazil is fast becoming the next hotspot in the coronavirus pandemic. By Friday, the South American country had reported nearly 27,000 deaths and over 438,000 confirmed infections, according to the Hopkins tally. Only the United States has more cases. On Monday, Trump issued a ban on all foreign travelers from Brazil because of the burgeoning number of COVID-19 cases in that country, CNN reported.

Cases are also spiking wildly in Russia: As of Friday, that country reported the world’s third-highest number of COVID-19 cases, at more than 387,600, the Hopkins tally showed.

Worldwide, the number of reported infections passed 5.8 million on Friday, with almost 361,000 deaths, according to the Hopkins tally.

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

References


SOURCES: New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2020; Associated Press; The New York Times; Washington Post; CBS News; NBC News, The LancetNew York City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygeine

Source link

1 in 10 COVID-19 Patients With Diabetes Dies – MedicineNet Health News

PressNewsAgency
-
0
1 in 10 COVID-19 Patients With Diabetes Dies – MedicineNet Health News

FRIDAY, May 29, 2020 — Ten percent of COVID-19 patients with diabetes die within a week of entering the hospital and 20% need a ventilator to breathe by that point, a new French study found.

Researchers analyzed data on more than 1,300 COVID-19 patients with diabetes, average age 70, who were hospitalized in France during March. Of those, 89% had type 2 diabetes, 3% had type 1, and the rest had other types of diabetes.

The study found that 1 in 5 patients had been placed on a ventilator in intensive care within seven days of entering the hospital; 1 in 10 had died; and 18% had been discharged.

“The risk factors for severe form of COVID-19 [in patients with diabetes] are identical to those found in the general population: age and BMI [weight],” said researchers led by diabetes specialists Dr. Bertrand Cariou and Dr. Samy Hadjadj, from University Hospital Nantes.

The study was the first to investigate how COVID-19 affects patients with diabetes.

Poor blood sugar control didn’t appear to affect a patient’s outcome, but diabetic complications and older age were linked to increased odds of death.

So was a higher body mass index (BMI), an estimate of body fat based on weight and height. Patients with a higher BMI were also more likely to need a ventilator.

The study found that 47% of patients had complications of the eye, kidney or nerves (microvascular), and 41% had complications in the heart, brain and legs (macrovascular).

Those complications each more than doubled a patient’s risk of death at day seven of hospitalization, according to the researchers.

Age was also key. Patients 75 years and older were 14 times more likely to die than patients under 55. Patients between 65 and 74 had triple the risk of death compared to those under 55.

In addition, obstructive sleep apnea and shortness of breath almost tripled a patient’s risk of death, and higher BMI increased the odds of needing a ventilator or death, the study found.

Women were 25% less likely than men to die or need a ventilator, but the statistical difference was borderline, the researchers said. When they focused on death alone, the risk for men and women was about the same.

The findings were published May 28 in the journal Diabetologia.

The study confirmed that insulin and other treatments for blood sugar control do not increase the odds of severe COVID-19 and should be continued in patients with diabetes, the authors said in a journal news release.

— Robert Preidt

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
See Answer

References


SOURCE: Diabetologia, news release, May 28, 2020

Source link

Big Need for Blood Donations as Postponed Surgeries Resume

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Big Need for Blood Donations as Postponed Surgeries Resume

FRIDAY, May 29, 2020 (HealthDay News) — As U.S. hospitals resume procedures put on hold by the coronavirus outbreak, there’s an urgent need for blood and platelet donations, the American Red Cross says.

Following a sharp decline in demand for blood products that began in early April, hospitals’ needs have recently spiked 30%.

“Blood donors are essential to ensuring the continued health of their community by making sure hospitals have a readily available supply of blood products for patients,” said Chris Hrouda, president of the American Red Cross Biomedical Services. “Blood cannot be stockpiled like other medical supplies and must be constantly replenished.”

Hrouda said the Red Cross is grateful to the tens of thousands of donors who rolled up a sleeve to help early on.

Though hospitals have resumed surgeries and treatments that were paused in response to COVID-19, many blood drives continue to be canceled as businesses and community groups remain closed, Hrouda said in a Red Cross news release. He said this has hampered the Red Cross’s ability to collect nearly 13,000 blood and more than 2,600 platelet donations needed at U.S. hospitals and transfusion centers.

The Red Cross said it’s urgently seeking donors and hosts for blood drives to ensure blood products are readily available for patients.

“During this crisis, we’re all in this together,” Hrouda said.

To make an appointment to donate, go to the American Red Cross website, use its donor app, call 800-RED-CROSS, or activate the blood scheduling skill for Alexa. Donors are asked to schedule an appointment before they arrive at a blood drive and must wear a face covering.

Everyone who donates through May 31 will receive a Red Cross T-shirt, while supplies last. Those who donate in June will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card.

Red Cross blood drives and donation centers follow strict safety and infection control measures.

The news release said those steps include checking temperatures of staff and donors; providing hand sanitizer and routinely disinfecting surfaces, equipment and areas that donors touch; keeping donors socially distanced; ensuring staff and donors wear face coverings and that staffers wear gloves and change them frequently; and using sterile collection sets and an aseptic scrub for every donation.

— Robert Preidt

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


Sickle cell disease is named after a farming tool.
See Answer

References


SOURCE: American Red Cross, news release, May 27, 2020



Source link

Is COVID-19 ‘One and Done?’ Experts Ponder Odds for Reinfection

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Is COVID-19 ‘One and Done?’ Experts Ponder Odds for Reinfection

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 29, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Let’s say you’re one of the more than 1.7 million people in the United States who’ve contracted COVID-19, and you’ve been fortunate enough to shake off the virus and recover.

What happens when you encounter the COVID-19 coronavirus again?

Reinfection is a major concern among public health officials as the nation moves toward reopening the economy.

“We’d love to think we’re basically one-and-done with this virus, so that if you’re infected with the virus, you develop antibodies and the next time you encounter the virus it takes it and it removes it from your body,” Jeffrey Shaman, director of the Columbia University Climate and Public Health Program, said during a HealthDay Live! interview.

Researchers wonder whether a recovered COVID-19 patient could contract the virus again and, if so, whether a second round of infection would be milder — or even more debilitating.

At this point, these are questions “I need to answer by looking at my crystal ball,” said Dr. Waleed Javaid, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.

Is it really reinfection?

Scattered studies have found the presence of COVID-19 in the bloodstream of people who appeared to have recovered, Shaman said.

But it’s not clear whether this is an actual reinfection or something else.

“We’ve seen this over and over again, where people who we really thought were cleared and had tested negative are testing positive subsequently,” Shaman said. “We haven’t found really definitive evidence it is a repeat infection for these individuals.”

There are a couple of alternative explanations for these cases that have to be ruled out before one can say people are being reinfected with COVID-19, said Dr. Greg Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The virus tests people are using might be picking up on residual genetic material from the defeated coronavirus, rather than actual infection, Poland said.

It also might be that the coronavirus lingers longer in the system than previously known, and later tests detect viral evidence not found right after a person’s recovery, he added.

“What we can say that is our knowledge of immunity to COVID-19 is only 18-ish weeks long,” Poland said. “We have no mid- or long-term data. None.”

Looking at the six other known coronaviruses for clues about COVID-19 can be frustrating because immune responses vary widely.

The four coronaviruses that cause the common cold can flout your immune system relatively easily.

“With the four seasonal coronaviruses that circulate most every winter, protection lasts as little as 80 days to as long as a year or two, maybe three,” Poland said.

“About 90% of the population has antibodies for each of those four coronaviruses, but we get them repeatedly,” Shaman said. “We have evidence to show that people get repeat infections by these coronaviruses, which is very concerning. It means they’re getting them over and over again in spite of some antibodies that have developed.”

Does mutation matter?

The two pandemic coronaviruses, SARS and MERS, do prompt the creation of antibodies that linger in the bloodstream for two to three years, Poland said.

But both of these coronaviruses petered out before researchers could gain a clear understanding of whether the antibodies would protect people against future infections, Poland added.

Studies of COVID-19 survivors have found the presence of neutralizing antibodies in their blood, the kind that would block the virus from infecting human cells. But it’s not known whether there are enough antibodies created to fend off future coronavirus attacks.

“Is reinfection likely? I think yes,” Poland said. “It is likely to be as severe? I’m going to guess no, unless — and this is the big boogeyman — the virus mutates. And it does slowly mutate.”

A mutated form of the COVID-19 coronavirus would be able to brush past antibodies created to fight off the current strains sweeping the nation.

The good news is that the coronavirus is genetically very unlikely to mutate in the way that the flu does, Javaid said.

The flu virus has broken RNA that promotes rapid mutation, which is why annual flu shots are needed to provide even partial protection, Javaid said.

“For coronavirus, the genetic material is a single strand,” Javaid said. “The ability for the flu virus to mutate is much higher.”

“What we don’t know about this specific virus is if it would change enough that we wouldn’t have any protection,” Javaid said. “If it doesn’t change, we will be protected for the time that our antibodies stay with our bodies. If it changes substantially, we may be subject to reinfection and severe illness, although the likelihood of this scenario is substantially less.”

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
See Answer

References


SOURCES: Jeffrey Shaman, Ph.D., director, Columbia University Climate and Public Health Program, New York City; Waleed Javaid, M.D., director, infection prevention and control, Mount Sinai Downtown, New York City; Greg Poland, M.D., director, Vaccine Research Group, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Source link

Pandemic Having More Impact on U.S. Hospitals Than Thought: Study

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Pandemic Having More Impact on U.S. Hospitals Than Thought: Study

FRIDAY, May 29, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the United States spend more time in the hospital and are more likely to require intensive care than patients in China, a new study says.

The findings suggest that the coronavirus pandemic may be putting greater strain on U.S. hospitals than previously assumed, according to researchers.

“The hospital resources needed to meet the needs of severely ill patients are substantial,” said lead author Joseph Lewnard, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We found that observations from China may not provide a sufficient basis for anticipating the U.S. health care demand,” he said in a university news release.

Lewnard and his colleagues analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,300 Kaiser Permanente members in California and Washington state who were hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 between the start of the year and early April.

Of those, 42% required intensive care, and 18% died of COVID-19. Estimates from China suggested that about 30% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients will require intensive care.

The researchers said their findings show the need to gather data in different regions and health care settings worldwide. They warned against relying on models based on data from other countries.

“The spread of COVID-19 and its impact on local health care systems show differences across the world,” said study co-author Vincent Liu, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Northern California.

He pointed out that health care systems differ and their capabilities and structure affect local response. As a result, it’s important to understand how local data compare to the experience seen in other countries.

The study also provided more evidence that older people are hit hardest by COVID-19. About 50% of hospitalizations were among adults 60 and older, and 25% among adults 73 and older.

And men seemed to be at greater risk than women. Hospitalized men older than 80 had a 58% risk of death, while the risk was 32% among hospitalized women of the same age.

The study did have some positive findings, showing that social distancing measures are successfully “flattening the curve” of new coronavirus transmission.

“Those efforts are going to be critical for this next phase, in which social distancing measures are gradually relaxed,” Liu said in the release. “We need our communities to stay really engaged, because these data show that even the actions of individuals and small groups can really impact the spread of the virus.”

The study was published online May 26 in the BMJ.

— Robert Preidt

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
See Answer

References


SOURCE: University of California, Berkeley, news release, May 26, 2020

Source link

India Positive | Students Develop Belt That Reminds Users To Maintain Social Distance

PressNewsAgency
-
0
India Positive | Students Develop Belt That Reminds Users To Maintain Social Distance

Gujarat Technological University students have created a belt that enforces social distancing rules.

Source link

Mike Pence Gets A Blunt Reminder After ‘Let Their Voices Be Heard’ Tweet

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Mike Pence Gets A Blunt Reminder After ‘Let Their Voices Be Heard’ Tweet

Twitter users took Vice President Mike Pence to task on Friday over his tweets about the death of George Floyd ― an unarmed Black man who died on Monday in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck ― and the protests that have since spread across the country.

“We have no tolerance for racism in America. We have no tolerance for violence inspired by racism,” Pence wrote in one tweet, adding in another: “We condemn violence against property or persons. We will always stand for the right of Americans to peacefully protest and let their voices be heard.”

Many critics accused Pence of hypocrisy, noting how he walked out of an NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers in 2017 in protest at the 49ers players who took a knee during the national anthem.

The athletes were powerfully yet peacefully protesting police brutality and systemic racial injustice, following the lead of former 49er Colin Kaepernick.

Others scolded Pence for putting the word “property” before the word “persons” in his post:



Source link

Ministry of External Affairs Asks Some Officials to Quarantine after 2 Test Positive for Covid-19: Report

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Ministry of External Affairs Asks Some Officials to Quarantine after 2 Test Positive for Covid-19: Report

Representative image. (Reuters)

A person who tested positive worked as a consultant in the ministry’s Central Europe division in New Delhi, while the other worked as a legal officer in the law division.

  • Reuters New Delhi

  • Last Updated: May 30, 2020, 12:05 AM IST

At least two people working at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) have tested positive for COVID-19, and the government has asked several officials to self-quarantine as a precaution, according to a source and internal emails seen by Reuters.

A person who tested positive worked as a consultant in the ministry’s Central Europe division in New Delhi, while the other worked as a legal officer in the law division, the emails showed.

“As per protocol, all members of the CE Division have been asked to go for self quarantine for 14 days and work from home,” the ministry advised in an internal email on May 27, which was reviewed by Reuters.

In a separate email on Friday, all officials who came into direct contact with the legal officer, who tested positive for the coronavirus, were also asked to self-quarantine.

The ministry did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

It was not immediately clear how many officials have been asked to self-quarantine.

The ministry is involved in many of India’s critical coronavirus relief efforts, especially those relating to the evacuation of Indian citizens stranded overseas. It has ordered sanitisation of rooms occupied by the Central Europe and legal division and those nearby, the source with knowledge of the matter said.

Last month, about 500 people entered self-isolation in staff quarters of India’s presidential palace after a family member of a sanitation worker living in employee quarters tested positive.

The number of COVID-19 cases are steadily rising in India. Government data on Friday showed nearly 1,66,000 have now tested positive for the virus, of which 4,706 have died.







https://pubstack.nw18.com/pubsync/fallback/api/videos/recommended?source=n18english&channels=5d95e6c378c2f2492e2148a2&categories=5d95e6d7340a9e4981b2e10a&query=Ministry,of,External,Affairs,Asks,Some,Officials,to,Quarantine,after,2,Test,Positive,for,Covid-19:,Report,coronavirus,mea,&publish_min=2020-05-28T03:31:02.000Z&publish_max=2020-05-30T03:31:02.000Z&sort_by=date-relevance&order_by=0&limit=2

Next Story

Source link

Centre Asks States to Streamline Inter-state Movement of Personnel Engaged in Locust Control

PressNewsAgency
-
0
Centre Asks States to Streamline Inter-state Movement of Personnel Engaged in Locust Control

Locusts swarm above a mango tree orchard in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan, Friday, May 29, 2020.

(AP Photo/Tariq Qureshi)

All states and union territories have also been issued an advisory along with standard operating procedures (SOPs) for handling the locust problem, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

  • PTI New Delhi

  • Last Updated: May 30, 2020, 12:03 AM IST

Amid threat of locust swarms travelling as far as Bihar, the Centre on Friday asked states to streamline inter-state movement of personnel engaged in controlling the spread of the crop-damaging migratory pests.

All states and union territories have also been issued an advisory along with standard operating procedures (SOPs) for handling the locust problem, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

Locust control measures that started since April 11 are underway in affected states in northern India.

In its May 27 letter written to all states, the Union Home Ministry has given “necessary instructions to streamline the inter-state movement facility for the personnel engaged in locust control works,” the statement said.

Under both State and National Disaster Response Fund, the Centre has included hiring of vehicles, machines and chemicals used in containment of locust control.

The quantum of assistance will be limited to the actual expenditure incurred on these items. However, expenditure should not exceed 25 per cent of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) allocation for the year, it added.

Meanwhile, in a video conference with all state governments, Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Aggarwal updated them about the status of the locust problem and control measures being undertaken.

The states were also informed about the latest update of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which has said locusts could reach as far as Bihar and Odisha in the coming months.

So far, locust control operations have been done in 377 spots covering 53,997 hectares in six states.

The control measures were undertaken in 15 locations in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on Friday.

These locations were in the districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Barmer, Chittorgarh, Sri Ganganagar (Rajasthan) and Niwari and Shivpuri (Madhya Pradesh).

The Madhya Pradesh government also undertook control operations at five locations — one each in districts of Satna, Balaghat, Niwari, Raisen and Shivpuri.

“No crop loss is reported,” the ministry added.



https://pubstack.nw18.com/pubsync/fallback/api/videos/recommended?source=n18english&channels=5d95e6c378c2f2492e2148a2&categories=5d95e6d7340a9e4981b2e10a&query=Centre,Asks,States,to,Streamline,Inter-state,Movement,of,Personnel,Engaged,in,Locust,Control,bihar,Locusts,&publish_min=2020-05-28T08:31:09.000Z&publish_max=2020-05-30T08:31:09.000Z&sort_by=date-relevance&order_by=0&limit=2

Source link

1...66,89166,89266,893...67,031Page 66,892 of 67,031