India’s Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons and the Way Forward

In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was indiscriminately spreading around the world, the seeming ability of India, the world’s second most populous country (with over 1.3 billion people), to contain the virus within its borders and keep COVID-19 infection and mortality rates low relative to population size was seen as miraculous. However, the miracle ended when ‘second-wave’ hit India in April 2021. On 1 May 2021, India became the first country in the world to record more than 400,000 coronavirus infections in a single day. This exponential rise in COVID-19 cases started on 28 April 2021 when India recorded 379,459 new COVID-19 cases and 3,647 deaths. This marked the eighth straight day of more than 300,000 cases a day—making India the second-highest COVID-19 case count in the world (over 20 million) with over 25 per cent of the global deaths from COVID. The following examines India’s fight against the pandemic, the failure to contain the second wave, the lessons learned and the way forward.

COVID-19 Outbreak in India: A Review of Preventive Measures and Challenges during the First Wave

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in India, the world's second most populous country, have been increasing rapidly in recent months, challenging India's ability to deal with this viral pandemic. The Government of India (GoI) and the States/UTs have taken a number of “pre-emptive, pro-active and graded” measures to prevent, contain, and manage COVID-19 in the country. These preventive measures and decisions taken by the GoI helped to stem the first wave of COVID-19 in the nation. Such measures and decisions were reviewed and monitored on a regular basis. The GoI followed a graded response approach, and ensured that there is no shortage of supplies of critical items, including medical Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), N95 masks, test kits, medications, and ventilators, across the country. The government ensured the establishment of COVID-19 hospitals at both the Center and the State to take care of the infected patients. Nations like India are at higher risk due to their large population density, inadequate infrastructure, and healthcare systems to satisfy extremely high demands.

A survey on the evolution of the Chinese cadastral system

Cadastral system plays a pivotal role in land administration, which has attracted notable attention from researchers and policy-makers worldwide. Despite China being the most populous country throughout the world, its cadastral system is rarely studied. This paper conducts a comprehensive survey on the evolution of the Chinese cadastral system by elaborating the historical and contemporary Chinese cadastre. Specifically, contemporary Chinese cadastre is articulated from the aspects including content and purpose, legal basis, organization, and technical approaches, and compared with Swiss and Hong Kong cadastre. It is concluded that the Chinese cadastre evolved in a different way from that of the western countries due to China’s unique historical and economic background. This study sheds light on systematically understanding the development of the Chinese cadastre and further refining contemporary Chinese cadastral system.

COVID-19 and the Challenges in World’s Largest Vaccination Drive in India

COVID-19’s second wave has placed India into a state of emergency. Since the beginning of April 2021, the country has seen an extraordinary influx of corona positive cases. Due to COVID-19, our country is in the midst of the world’s worst crisis. Many reports and articles about the lack of hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, ICU beds, ventilators, and other medical supplies were published (both print and electronic) in this second wave, exposing the flaws in our country’s healthcare system. On January 16, 2021, the Indian government launched the world’s largest vaccination effort, but we still have a long way to go in vaccinating our 1.4 billion people. India, after China, is the world’s second-most populous country, accounting for approximately 17.5 percent of the global population. This post aims to emphasize the issues that our country is currently facing, as well as possible solutions to combat this deadly illness.

Circulation and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in India: Let the Data Speak

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge that impacted 200+ countries. India ranks in the second and third positions in terms of number of reported cases and deaths. Being a populous country with densely packed cities, SARS-CoV-2 spread exponentially. India sequenced ≈0.14% isolates from confirmed cases for pandemic surveillance and contributed ≈1.58% of complete genomes sequenced globally. This study was designed to map the circulating lineage diversity and to understand the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in India using comparative genomics and population genetics approaches. Despite varied sequencing coverage across Indian States and Union Territories, isolates belonging to variants of concern (VoC) and variants of interest (VoI) circulated, persisted, and diversified during the first seventeen months of the pandemic. Delta and Kappa lineages emerged in India and spread globally. The phylogenetic tree shows lineage-wise monophyletic clusters of VoCs/VoIs and diversified tree topologies for non-VoC/VoI lineages designated as ‘Others’ in this study. Evolutionary dynamics analyses substantiate a lack of spatio-temporal clustering, which is indicative of multiple global and local introductions. Sites under positive selection and significant variations in spike protein corroborate with the constellation of mutations to be monitored for VoC/VoI as well as substitutions that are characteristic of functions with implications in virus–host interactions, differential glycosylation, immune evasion, and escape from neutralization.

The prioritization of renewable energy technologies in Pakistan: An urgent need

Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country, currently facing the worst energy crisis. Although rich in renewable resources, Pakistan's energy system relies mainly on fossil fuels and imported energy for its energy needs. This study aims to use an analytical hierarchy pro-cess to prioritize six renewable technologies for Pakistan, with four criteria and thirteen subcriteria. The results indicate that solar power is particularly well suited for Pakistan, as it gained 42% priority weightage in the final aggregation. Wind energy is ranked second with a priority weight of 24%, followed by hydro 13%, biomass 9%, ocean 8% and geothermal en-ergy 3%. Solar and wind energies accounted for nearly 66% of the total weightage. This result highlighted the significance of economic criteria for the selection of renewable technologies in Pakistan, with around 43% priority weightage. Environmental criteria gained 19% whereas socio-political criteria registered 14% and technical criteria 23% priority weightage. During the potential assessment of the research, it was concluded that although renewable resource development has not been allocated sufficient attention in Pakistan in the past, if the correct decisions are taken regarding the exploitation of these resources, this can remedy the country's hazardous dependence on fossil fuel and imported energy.

Surgical Treatment of Valvular Heart Disease in Nigeria: A 6-Year Experience

Surgical treatment of valvular heart disease in Nigeria, the most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, is adversely affected by socioeconomic factors such as poverty and ignorance. To evaluate our experience in this context, we identified all patients who underwent surgery for acquired or congenital valvular heart disease at our Nigerian center from February 2013 through January 2019. We collected data from their medical records, including patient age and sex, pathophysiologic causes and types of valvular disease, surgical treatment, and outcomes. Ninety-three patients (43 males [46.2%]; mean age, 38.9 ± 10.0 yr [range, 11–80 yr]) underwent surgical treatment of a total of 122 diseased valves, including 72 (59.0%) mitral, 26 (21.3%) aortic, 21 (17.2%) tricuspid, and 3 (2.5%) pulmonary. The most prevalent pathophysiologic cause of disease was rheumatic (87 valves [71.3%]), followed by functional (20 [16.4%]), congenital (8 [6.6%]), degenerative (5 [4.1%]), and endocarditic (2 [1.6%]). All 3 diseased pulmonary valves had annular defects associated with congenital disease. Surgical treatment included mechanical prosthetic replacement of 92 valves (75.4%), surgical repair of 29 (23.8%), and bioprosthetic replacement of 1 (0.8%). We conclude that, in Nigeria, valvular disease is mainly rheumatic, affects mostly younger to middle-aged individuals, and is usually treated with prosthetic replacement

Second wave COVID crisis, social responsibility and social stigma in India

India, the second most populous country in the world and home of 1.30 billion population sees sudden emergence of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since 2020. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus that is responsible for this global pandemic. The origin of this virus is still unknown. This pandemic causes heavy impact on its health infrastructure. Although this pandemic hit at global level, this review is particularly highlight the pandemic situation and how it is being tackled in India. During April and May 2021, due to the high surge of cases, India had reported several million numbers of COVID-19 affected people. During this course of tackling this pandemic, India sees a huge surge of vaccine hesitancy due to various factors. Data suggests that the virus affects younger age groups as well. This review tends to highlight the actual situation and major factors contributed to COVID-19 pandemic in India, also to highlight India’s vaccine policy. To shed light on what went wrong and what can be learned from COVID-19 crisis in India. This data presents important results regarding the COVID‐19 pandemic in India.

Cardiometabolic and Blood Glucose Factors in Merdeka, Gandus, Sei Selincah and Basuki Rahmat Palembang Health Centers

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. One third of all deaths in Indonesia are caused by cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases. We estimate this is related to gender, specific age and vascular risk factors and other modifiable risk factors, such as smoking, hypertension, diabetes, increased total cholesterol and overweight. This research is a cross sectional study. The study was conducted in four Palembang City Health Centers namely Sei Selincah Health Center, Merdeka Health Center, Basuki Rahmat Health Center and Gandus Health Center. The study data was taken consecutively for each adult patient who came for treatment at the puskesmas, met the inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in the study. The data that has been collected is then analyzed using SPSS 18.0 for Windows. In this study obtained cases of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia in the four health centers period 30 October - 25 November 2017 as many as 200 respondents. Obtained cases of hypertension as many as 152 respondents (76%), cases of diabetes melitus as many as 73 respondents (36.5%) and hypercholesterolemia as many as 39 respondents (19.5%). In this study no association was found between Diabetes mellitus and hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. risk factors for sex, age, BMI and smokers are risk factors that influence hypertension, while risk factors for diabetes mellitus are, gender, age, and BMI. As for hypercholesterolemia, the only risk factor that influences education level.

Kumbh Mela Religious Gathering as a Massive Superspreading Event: Potential Culprit for the Exponential Surge of COVID-19 Cases in India

ABSTRACT. The Kumbh Mela is a significant religious gathering of millions of Hindu devotees in India. It is celebrated on certain auspicious days in the Hindu calendar and attracts millions of pilgrims across the country. Despite the religious intention of millions of Hindu devotees, it raised public health concerns as it became a massive superspreading event for COVID-19. Being the second most populous country, India became the second most affected country during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the arrival of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants and the presence of the double mutated variant, which was first identified in India, the Kumbh Mela probably aggravated the country’s COVID-19 situation which resulted in an uncontrollable second wave. Several cases of COVID-19 across India had been contact-traced to returnees from the event who acted as a nidus to help spread the infection. As a consequence, India’s healthcare system was severely challenged as a result of the overwhelming hospitalizations and increasing fatalities resulting in an acute manpower shortage in healthcare along with the depletion of drugs and medical supplies despite being one of the largest pharmaceutical hubs globally. Leaders and governments around the world should learn from India’s experience and thereby take preventive measures to manage potential superspreading events to curb the spike of COVID-19 cases.