Nepal reports 2, 526 new Covid-19 cases, 16 deaths on Friday
Nepal logged 2, 526 new Covid-19 cases and 16 deaths on Friday.
With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,097,589. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,794.
According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 6,655 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 1,602 returned positive. Likewise, 4,418 people underwent antigen tests, of which 924 tested positive.
The Ministry said that 8,425 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.
As of today, there are 56,457 active cases in the country.
The Ministry said that 55,090 people are staying in home isolation while 1, 367 are in institutionalized isolation.
Among them, 243 are in Intensive Care Unit while 51 are on ventilators.
Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 1772 new cases today.
According to the Ministry, 1,361 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 271 in Lalitpur and 90 in Bhaktapur.
World Cancer Day: Women more prone to cancer than men in Nepal
Among the new cancer patients, the BP Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Chitwan has recorded more women patients than men, indicating the rising cases of cancer among women than men.
Among the total 90,571 cancer patients availing services from the Hospital in the last fiscal year 2020/21, 4,608 were new patients. Among them, over 55 per cent were women and 45 per cent men, the Hospital said.
Executive director of the Hospital Dr Dej Kumar Gautam said that 2,517 new women patients were admitted to the Hospital last fiscal year while the number of new male cancer patients remained at 2,091.
The Hospital has been providing healthcare services to around 25,000 old cancer patients. The Hospital received a lesser number of cancer patients last year compared to the previous fiscal year due to COVID-19 risk, said Dr Gautam, adding that lung cancer-related patients constitute the highest number at 12 per cent followed by cervical cancer at 10.17 per cent.
Remaining cancer patients were related to breast and mouth, according to the Hospital. Women have a higher chance of developing cancer in the uterus, gallbladder, kidney, abdominal, thyroid and colon cancer while men were prone to develop cancer in the abdominal, kidney, tongue, urinary bladder among others.
The increase in women cancer patients could be attributed to various factors, opines Dr Gautam. One among them was the rise in cases of breast and uterus cancer among women. Also, men could travel abroad for treatment for cancer but women often are treated in the nearest cancer treatment facility. This, according to Dr Gautam, could record the higher number of women cancer patients.
Nearly 25,000 new cancer cases reported in Nepal
He informed that nearly 25,000 new cancer cases were reported in Nepal. More than half of them opt for treatment abroad, the majority of them being male.
Hospital's female oncologist Dr Bijaya Acharya said one of the reasons for the high number of women suffering from cancer compared to their male counterparts maybe because most of the women have breast and cervical cancer. Another reason, he said, might be that while the males went abroad for treatment, most of the females were treated within the country.
"However, to take this statistics as the base might not be accurate since only a few patients were treated in this hospital last year. There used to be 2 to3 per cent more male than female cancer patients before," Acharya, who is also the former executive director of the hospital, said.
The hospital's ENT disease specialist Dr Anil Bikram Karki said the number of females coming for health checkups at the hospital might have increased as more and more women become aware of the disease.
"Public awareness programmes should be organized at the local level on the prevention of breast and cervix cancer. It would be easier to prevent cancer by organizing screening and health tests as well as by raising public awareness extensively," he said.
Hospital's deputy director Dr Krishna Sagar Sharma stressed that more than half of the cancer diseases could be reduced by adopting a healthy lifestyle and food. He said most of the cancer can be cured if timely treatment.RSS
India’s COVID deaths cross 500,000 but some analysts count millions more
India’s official COVID-19 death toll crossed 500,000 on Friday, a level some data analysts said was breached last year but was obscured by inaccurate surveys and unaccounted dead in the hinterlands, where millions remain vulnerable to the disease, Reuters reported.
The country, which has the fourth-highest tally of deaths globally, recorded 400,000 deaths by July 2021 after the devastating outbreak from the Delta variant of the coronavirus, according to official data. Some believe the figures were much higher.
“Our study published in the journal Science estimates 3 million COVID deaths in India until mid-2021 using three different databases,” Chinmay Tumbe, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, who co-authored the study, told Reuters.
Last month, the Indian government dismissed the study as baseless in a notification saying there is a robust system of birth and death reporting.
India’s states record deaths from COVID after collating data from their districts. In the last few months, several states have updated the number of deaths, some under pressure from the country’s top court. In most instances, authorities said there were lapses due to delayed registrations and other administrative errors.
India is currently in the midst of a third wave of the coronavirus led by the Omicron variant, which some top experts say is already in community transmission although federal officials say most cases are mild.
Last month, the government eased testing norms and told states to drop mandatory testing for contacts of confirmed cases unless they were old or battling other conditions. But, with the number of tests falling, the government issued a revised circular warning states they would miss the spread of the virus.
According to official figures, India’s overall number of COVID infections has reached 41.95 million, the second-highest globally behind the United States.
To prevent new surges, the government has vaccinated three-fourths of the eligible 939 million adult population with the mandatory two-dose regime.
Indian officials are carrying out a vaccination drive in remote parts of the country to increase lagging vaccination rates, with health workers going door-to-door to administer shots.
“I make them understand how important vaccines are to escape from coronavirus,” health worker Asmita Koladiya, who is forced to take her infant daughter along with her because of a lack of childcare, told Reuters.
In the country’s capital Delhi, as new infections of the Omicron variant fell sharply off the peak, authorities further eased curbs and said they will allow schools and colleges to reopen from Monday, and permit private offices to be fully staffed.
The city’s sports complexes will also reopen, its Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said in a webcast on Friday.
RECONCILIATION WITH TIME, GRIEF
India’s cumulative tally of 500,055 deaths on Friday included 1,072 fatalities reported over the last 24 hours, according to the federal health ministry. Out of this, 335 deaths were reported from the southern state of Kerala that has, for weeks, been updating data with deaths from last year.
Kerala, with less than 3% of India’s 1.35 billion population, accounts for nearly 11% of the total deaths reported in the country.
“Some states such as Kerala are recording their backlog deaths under judicial pressure, although not all states have done that,” said Gautam Menon, a professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University near the capital who has been tracking the spread of the virus.
In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, authorities have received over 100,000 claims for COVID-19 compensation, of which 87,000 claims have been approved, according to a senior government official.
The number of claims received is nearly 10 times the official COVID-19 death toll of 10,545, as per government data.
“There has not been any under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths…The policy for paying compensation is very liberal as per the Supreme Court’s directives, which is why the number of applicants is more than the COVID-19 deaths,” the official said, declining to be identified due to the sensitive nature of discussions.
Falling tree crushes 2 students to death in Dhanusha
Two students were crushed to death after a tree fell upon them due to heavy storm in the premises of Phakirchand Higher Secondary School in Sabaila Municipality-12 of Dhanusha district.
The deceased have been identified as Pratima Kumari Sada (8) and Arbind Sada (7) of Sabaila Municipality, Dhanusha, SP Basanta Rajaure of the District Police Office, Dhanusha said.
The Sada duo, who sustained deep injuries on their head, died on the spot, police said.
