Neanderthal remains found at site near Rome
ing the modalities for oxygen expeditiously within a week”, the order passed on May 6 said. It was released on Saturday evening.
The task force, which has a term of six months initially and will include 10 medical experts from across the country for devising a “public health response” mechanism, has been requested to come up with a new formula of oxygen allocation; recommendations for augmentation of oxygen; measures necessary for ensuring the availability of essential drugs; best practices for management and treatment of Covid-19; measures to ensure adequate health care professionals; and outreach of expert medical care to rural areas.
The task force will submit its recommendations to the Supreme Court and to the Centre, which will have to then take appropriate decisions. The apex court may also pass suitable orders based on these recommendations.
The order said the task force should also facilitate audits to be conducted by sub-groups within each state and Union Territory to scrutinise whether the allocated quantity of oxygen reached states as well as to pin accountability on states regarding its utilisation and distribution to hospitals.
About Delhi, the court reiterated its direction to the Centre to “strictly” keep supplying 700MT oxygen per day pending further orders but at the same time, accepted solicitor general Tushar Mehta’s request for carrying out an audit immediately to ensure that the oxygen was being distributed by the Delhi government in an efficient and transparent manner.
During the proceedings on Friday, while the S-G maintained that Delhi’s requirement was between 500 and 600MT per day and that the deficit in hospitals, if any, was due to the inefficiency and systemic failure on the part of the Delhi government, senior advocate Rahul Mehra, representing the citystate’s government, objected to any such audit for the national capital.
However, the bench has now set up a committee comprising Dr Randeep Guleria (director, All India Institute of Medical
Sciences, Delhi), Dr Sandeep Budhiraja (director, Max Healthcare) and one joint secretary-level officer each from the Centre and Delhi government “to ensure a measure of accountability for the proper distribution of oxygen supplies” made available to the city government.
“The purpose of conducting audits is to ensure accountability in respect of the supplies of oxygen provided to every State/ UT. The purpose is to ensure that the supplies which have been allocated are reaching their destination; that they are being made available through the distribution network to the hospitals or, as the case may be, the end users efficiently and on a transparent basis; and to identify bottlenecks or issues in regard to the utilization of oxygen,” said the court, adding that the decisions made in good faith by doctors while treating their patients will not be questioned.
The court, which on Friday pointed out flaws with the Centre’s formula to link allocation of oxygen to only the number of beds in the hospitals of a state and its active cases without paying heed to its requirements for patients at homes and other Covid Care Centres, underscored that the task force should start its exercise regarding oxygen allocation “immediately”.
“It is necessary that an effective and transparent mechanism is set up within the Union government for the purpose of allocating medical oxygen to all States and UTS for being used during the Covid-19 pandemic. This task force would be tasked inter alia with formulating a methodology for the scientific allocation of oxygen to the states and UTS,” said the bench in its order.
The rationale for constituting a task force at a national level, the court said, is “to facilitate a public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialised domain knowledge” and to enable the decision makers to have inputs from leading experts for formulation of scientific strategies to deal with an unprecedented human crisis not only for the present problems but by also taking into account the likely future course of the pandemic.
“Estimating projected needs is crucial to ensure that the
MILAN: Archaeologists discovered the remains of nine Neanderthals at a prehistoric site near Rome, Italy’s culture ministry said on Saturday.
Eight of the remains are dated to between 50,000 and 68,000 years ago, while one, the oldest, is dated to between 90,000 and 100,000 years ago, the ministry said.
The find occurred in Grotta Guattari, prehistoric caves discovered more than 80 years ago, located around 100 metres from country remains prepared to meet future eventualities, which will cause a demand for oxygen, medicines, infrastructure, manpower and logistics. The establishment of the task force will provide the Union government with inputs and strategies for meeting the challenges of the pandemic on a transparent and professional basis, in the present and in future,” held the bench.
It asked the Centre, states, agencies as well as private hospitals to render all cooperation to the task force, besides providing complete and real-time data for facilitating its work.
The task force will include Dr Bhabatosh Biswas (former vicechancellor, West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Kolkata), Dr Devender Singh Rana (chairperson, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi), Dr Devi Prasad Shetty (chairperson and executive director, Narayana Healthcare, Bengaluru), Dr Gagandeep Kang (professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore), Dr JV Peter (director, Christian Medical College, Vellore), Dr Naresh Trehan (chairperson and managing director, Medanta Hospital, Gurugram), Dr Rahul Pandit (director, Critical Care Medicine and ICU, Fortis Hospital, Mumbai), Dr Saumitra Rawat (chairman & head, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology and Liver Transplant, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi), Dr Shiv Kumar Sarin (head of department of Hepatology, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Delhi), and Dr Zarir F Udwadia (consultant chest physician, Hinduja Hospital Mumbai).
The cabinet secretary will be the convener and a member of the task force apart from secretary in the ministry of health and family welfare, who will also be a member.
The bench added that the task force will be at liberty to draw upon the human resources of various ministries, departments and institutions of the central government for consultation and information and may also constitute one or more sub-groups on specialised areas such as infectious disease modelling, epidemiology, virology and critical care, for assisting it before finalising the recommendations.
The court’s order come on an appeal by the central governthe coast of Tyrrhenian Sea in San Felice Circeo, near Latina, in the Lazio region.
Video footage from the ministry showed bones, craniums and other body parts found at the site.
Neanderthals, the closest ancient relatives of humans, died out about 40,000 years ago.
It is unclear what killed them off, although theories include an inability to adapt to climate change and increased competition from humans. ment against initiation of contempt proceedings against it by the Delhi high court on May 4 over deficit in supply of medical oxygen to Delhi.
The bench will take up the matter next on May 17.
Delhi government officials did not respond to requests for comment.
“I think it is good that the SC has stepped in, the pandemic has become a political one-upmanship. All the parties should have been brought together to help people. There is a government that is favouring one state over the other, complete data is not being provided. It is all a disheartening mess. The logistics should be looked at but there shouldn’t be any restrictions on the use of essentials like oxygen,” said Dr T Jacob John, former head of the department of virology at Christian Medical College, Vellore.
were not able to purchase shots for the 18-44 age group and won’t be able to kick off the third phase of the drive on time.
In this phase, the central government is supposed to provide vaccines to states/uts for inoculating people aged 45 and above. For younger adults in the 18-44 age group, state governments and private hospitals directly procure shots from vaccine makers.
While some private hospitals in Delhi began vaccinations for younger adults from May 1, the Delhi government only started doing so from May 3.
While the Delhi government is in the process of increasing the number of schools -- which are presently being used as vaccination centres for younger adults -- from 100 to about 300, Kejriwal said scaling up Delhi’s capacity will still not be possible if the city does not get around 8 to 8.5 million vaccine doses every month.
“Delhi’s population is 2 crore. About 1 crore people are in the age group of 18-45, approximately 50 lakh are under 18, and another 50 lakh are older than 45. So, those above 18 years are roughly 1.5 crore. These 1.5 crore people have to be given 3 crore vaccines, which is our requirement. From these 3 crore vaccines, the Delhi government, as of now, has received approximately 40 lakh vaccines. Therefore, we need 2 crore 60 lakh additional vaccines,” he said.
The chief minister further said this is the minimum number of doses that Delhi needs and the actual requirement is likely to be higher because many people from the neighbouring cities and towns of Noida, Ghaziabad, Sonepat, Faridabad and Gurugram are also coming to the Capital to take the jab.
“In fact, more doses will be required since people from the NCR and other neighbouring areas are coming to Delhi to get vaccinated. But the minimum requirement of Delhi must be met with. Thus, I appeal to the central government that sufficient vaccines be made available to us,” he added.
As per government data at 10am on Saturday, Delhi had a stock of 771,860 doses of vaccines, out of which 339,080 doses are those procured by the city administration for those between 18-44 years and 432,780 are from the central government, meant for those 45 years old and above.
On average, for the last seven days, the city has been administering 63,511 shots per day, according to the daily health bulletin.
With the current stock remaining as is without getting replenished and the same rate of daily vaccinations, the Delhi government will run out of shots 12 days from Saturday: May 20.
Delhi government officials, however, said on condition of anonymity that they expect to receive vaccines from manufacturers and the Centre soon as orders have already been placed. The officials did not give details about the timeline or number of vaccines they are likely to receive.
Around 79,800 recipients were administered the jab on Friday, according to the government’s health bulletin issued on Saturday. Later in the evening, government officials updated the figure to 114,657.
Overall, 3,746,494 “cumulative beneficiaries” had been vaccinated in the city, the bulletin said.
“To vaccinate every adult in three months, we have to administer 80-85 lakh vaccines every month. It means we need to administer 3 lakh vaccines daily. Today, we are already administering 1 lakh vaccines in 100 schools (and other centres). This will be increased to 300 schools.
So, we can easily increase our capacity to 3 lakh vaccines per day. But in the end, it will all depend on how much and how quickly vaccines are delivered to us,” Kejriwal said.
Delhi has enlisted schools, which are closed down due to the pandemic, to inoculate younger adults, while government-run medical facilities are for the older age groups.
On Saturday, the vaccination drive at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, run by the central government, was delayed by an hour in the morning “due to shortage of vials”, according to the hospital spokesperson Smriti Tiwari.
The hospital is a vaccination centre only for those who are 45 years and above. A senior doctor, who did not want to be named, said, “The vaccine doses are distributed by the district officials. There were no leftover vaccines in the hospital today and there was a delay in getting the vials from the administration.”
The hospital has a capacity to store vaccines for a couple of days.
Several other states too have brought up the issue of limited vaccine supplies. The Maharashtra government, which is also facing the issue, said earlier this week it is “constantly” following up with the Centre to provide vaccine doses for inoculating people aged 45 and above.
Kejriwal on Saturday also appealed to all experts and the Centre to arrange vaccines for those below 18 years of age.
”We are particularly concerned about children. Youngsters and children under 18 cannot get vaccinated right now. I appeal to all experts and the Centre to arrange a vaccine for them too so that they can also get inoculated,” he said.
To be sure, most vaccines against Covid-19 have only conducted clinical trials involving adults. Canada is the only country in the world to have approved the Pfizer-biontech’s Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents as young as 12. The US and Europe are expected to do so shortly.
Experts say the current lockdown and adherence of Covidappropriate behaviour will slow the spread of the virus, but vaccinating entire populations is key to fighting the pandemic as a long-term measure.
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