The government of India has announced face masks and hand sanitizers as essential commodities for the next 100 days. Both masks (2ply & 3 ply surgical masks, N95 masks) and hand sanitizers have been brought under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. The government has notified order under the Essential Commodities Act to make these items as essential commodities up to June 30, 2020, by amending the schedule of the Essential Commodities Act 1955.
The World Health Organization(WHO) has officially announced COVID-19 as a pandemic as it spread freely to more than 100 countries around the world. A pandemic is declared when a new disease for which people do not have immunity spreads around the world beyond expectations. COVID-19 is a disease caused by the novel coronavirus which started in China.
“COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator” is a new fund which has been released by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard. The $125 Million fund has been launched to upgrade technologies to fight against the COVID-19 epidemic and has been designed to identify, assess, develop and scale treatments to the COVID-19 disease outbreak. The fund targets to assess new and repurposed drugs and biologics to cure patients suffering from COVID-19 in the immediate term, and also capable of curing other viral pathogens in the future.
New Delhi launches a national level Training Workshop on COVID-19 Management for all the states and hospitals. The workshop was managed by the Health Ministry targets to train the trainers on various aspects to tackle the situation related to novel Coronavirus. Infection prevention, hospital preparedness, disinfection and biomedical waste management, community engagement, non-pharmaceutical interventions are some aspects on which training will be provided to the trainers