Kokholmsloan9925

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic has exposed the acute vulnerability of the health systems of countries worldwide. While countries are scrambling to contain the spread of the infection, the focus is largely on infection prevention strategies such as isolation, quarantine, physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and country-wide lock-down. Important ethical concerns arise in the context of the public health interventions. However, while focusing on the forest, the population, attention must also be paid to the trees, the individuals who suffer the illness. This article focuses on the ethical conflicts between the largely public health- driven focus of the Covid19 prevention and containment measures versus patient-centred care for those who suffer the illness and the consequent moral distress of healthcare providers. The key argument is for countries to mainstream clinical ethics considerations for care of patients with Covid-19 as well as "non-Covid-19" illnesses. Keywords SARS-CoV2, Covid 19, clinical ethics, duty to care, allocation of scarce resources, moral distress.The taking of oaths by medical students at graduation or other times during training have become common practice globally, particularly in the last century. While some use the modern versions of the Hippocratic Oath, other colleges encourage students to frame their own. Inspired by the Oath of Initiation of Caraka, a student oath at the start of medical education, when idealism is high, can be formative as it introduces the values of the profession. The proposed student pledge could find a place in the foundation course and white coat ceremony of the new MBBS curriculum. Keywords student's pledge, initiation ceremony, orientation, medical curriculum, fraternity.The national lockdown in India has (thus far) prevented a surge of Covid-19 cases. Due to crowded living conditions and poor social security, infectious spread may be difficult to contain and mitigate. BLU9931 concentration India's healthcare system must respond to impending Covid-19 cases, as well as chronic, non-communicable diseases. Acute and chronic cardiovascular disease care have drastically decreased, suggesting reduced accessibility during the current pandemic. Neglecting chronic diseases may lead to permanent health damage and deaths that far exceed the negative outcomes of the pandemic alone. As businesses start to reopen, the healthcare system must find a balance in attending to Covid-19 rises amidst a significant chronic disease backdrop. Keywords India, Covid-19, cardiovascular disease, pandemic.The ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected more than 6 million all over the world and has caused more than 3.8 lakh fatalities till date(1) Health workers are the frontline responders and are exposed to a plethora of health hazards. Recently, an advisory by the Indian Council of Medical Research for the use of hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis was hailed as an outstanding initiative for the protection of healthcare workers and high risk contacts of patients. But the evidence of effectiveness available is only from in vitro studies and non-randomised control trials of insufficient sample size. Several ongoing large scale clinical trials are focused on the same research questions, the preliminary results of which are still awaited. The present study discusses the ethics of the introduction of therapeutic or preventive interventions based on limited available evidence during the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19..The COVID-19 pandemic has posed several challenges to the Indian healthcare system. Here, we examine the situation in India considering the moral and ethical imperatives of decision making for public health. Currently, in the absence of proven therapies, empirical evidence is being used for treatment of Covid-19 disease. We find a dual standard of practice. Currently, only modern medicine therapies are used on an empirical basis, however, the same principle is not considered for the use of AYUSH systems. Appropriate use of evidence is required. In the ethics context and in the interest of the larger public good, we suggest the inclusion of simple and safe measures from AYUSH systems in the integrative protocols for prophylaxis and treatment of Covid-19. Keywords AYUSH systems, Covid-19, pandemic, prophylaxis, evidence, empirical evidence, priority setting, public health decision making, global health emergencies,complementary medicine, integrative healthcare.The Covid-19 pandemic has created a situation demanding rapid ethical review of research on various aspects of the pandemic, while maintaining social distancing norms. Research during an outbreak is important for understanding the disease and its management and allows scientists to study the disease .It is not wrong to say that ethical issues have been given limited attention by professionals in laboratory medicine as compared to other fields of medicine (1). The most ethically problematic laboratory examinations are those dealing with genetic testing, autopsies, prenatal and HIV examinations and now, testing microbial agents in epidemics or pandemics, like Covıd-19..During a pandemic, narrowing ethics into silos such as clinical and public health does not help the cause of ethics, which often gets neglected in desperate times. Our response to a recently published article in this journal, tries to take this discussion forward. Keeping medical ethics at the centre of our response to the Covid-19 pandemic would benefit healthcare systems at all levels. This would also help us be prepared for future pandemics. Strengthening healthcare systems would also provide an opportunity to improve non-Covid care..In India, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown open challenges on multiple fronts (a) the reconfiguration of care in hospitals, in response to Covid-19, has led to many patients suffering non-Covid conditions having to delay their treatment, and (b) the lockdown which though necessary has affected people unequally, some being much worse-off than others. This article unpacks the impact of Covid-19 on healthcare systems in India by raising moral and ethical questions about the plight of patients with other medical conditions while accessing care. This article also proposes a set of actions by which healthcare systems can address Covid and non-Covid related healthcare needs..In 2018, the Division of Health and Humanities at St John's Research Institute introduced the "Citizen Doctor" course for first year medical students at St. John's Medical College. The focus was to expose future doctors to the wider framework of health and invoke a sense of citizenship, responsiveness, and critical thinking. Classes in Environmental sciences and the Constitution of India, advocated as beneficial for all undergraduate students in India, were used as the basis to design the Citizen Doctor Course. This paper is an evaluation of this innovative course. A structured feedback questionnaire was administered to students at the end of the course; an overwhelming majority found that these classes helped them identify and understand contemporary social and environmental issues. It evoked a sense of wider responsibility and responsiveness, thus laying the foundation for a "citizen doctor". The evidence suggests that this course should continue and expand to other years and other medical colleges Keywords citizen, humanities, environmental science, constitution of India, social determinants of health, medical education.Background The COVID-19 epidemic has affected every area of life. The greatest challenge has been to adapt the functioning of the health service to prevent the spread of the epidemic and to help infected patients. This has required the involvement of not only doctors and nurses, but also pharmacists. In the face of this pandemic, governments in many countries have granted pharmacists greater authority. Objectives The purpose of this paper is to review the legal extension of the role of pharmacists in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The review considers recent changes in European countries, Canada, and the United States. Methods A literature review was performed to summarise knowledge about the extension of the role of pharmacists during the pandemic period. Key articles were retrieved mainly from PubMed and Google Scholar, using the terms "COVID-19", "2019-nCoV", "coronavirus", and "pandemic" in combination with "pharmacist" as keywords for our search. We included scientific publications from February 1, 2019ding the limited resources of overloaded healthcare systems.Municipal solid waste generation is becoming a prominent issue in the environmental arena. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship among municipal waste generation, greenhouse gas emissions, and GDP in Switzerland over the period 1990-2017. We apply both time series procedures (stationarity and causality tests) and a Machine Learning approach. Empirical findings underline a bidirectional causal relationship between municipal solid waste generation and GDP, indicating that the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis holds for Switzerland. Moreover, we found that waste recovery (recycling and composting) is a key driver in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in the Tree Model, the probability that a change in the waste recovery variable could lead to a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions registered a value of 87%.Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have focused on repurposing of existing antibiotics, antivirals and anti-inflammatory drugs to find an effective therapy. Fluoroquinolones are broad spectrum synthetic antimicrobial agents, being chemical derivatives of quinoline, the prodrome of chloroquine. Interestingly, fluoroquinolones may exert antiviral actions against vaccinia virus, papovavirus, CMV, VZV, HSV-1, HSV-2, HCV and HIV. A recent in silico study has shown that the fluoroquinolones, ciprofloxacin and moxifloxacin, may inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication by exhibiting stronger capacity for binding to its main protease than chloroquine and nelfinavir, a protease inhibitor antiretroviral drug. Remarkably, fluoroquinolones have shown multiple immunomodulatory actions leading to an attenuation of the inflammatory response through the inhibition of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Noteworthy, respiratory fluoroquinolones, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin, constitute fist line therapeutic agents for the management of severe community-acquired pneumonia. They are characterized by advantageous pharmacokinetic properties; higher concentrations in the lungs; and an excellent safety profile comparable to other antibiotics used to treat respiratory infections, such as macrolides and b-lactams. Based on their potential antiviral activity and immunomodulatory properties, the favorable pharmacokinetics and safety profile, we propose the use of respiratory fluoroquinolones as adjuncts in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 associated pneumonia.Background Cervical Cancer (CC) is a worldwide public health concern associated with genetic alterations, among these the gain of the 19q chromosome harboring the Pregnancy Specific Glycoproteins (PSG) gene family. These proteins play a critical role in pregnancy, with participation in immunotolerance, angiogenesis, and invasion processes, which are also observed in carcinogenesis. The aim of this study was to determine the molecular alterations of PSG1 and its relationship with CC. Methods PSG1 Copy Number Variation (CNV) was evaluated in 31 CC and eight normal cervical tissues by qPCR. PSG1 expression was correlated with HPV detection and IL-10 and TGF-β expression in CC samples. Finally, PSG1 protein expression was evaluated by immunofluorescence in CC cell lines, by immunohistochemistry in a tissue microarray, and by immunoblotting in the sera of women with normal cervix, pre-invasive lesions, and CC. Results PSG1 showed a gain of 25.6% in CNV and gene expression in CC. There was a lack of PSG1 expression in normal cervical epithelium and positive immunostaining in 57% of CC tissues, while all CC cell lines expressed PSG1.