Posts tagged Covid-19

Nations can learn from others on lifting lockdowns

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 02.10.2020 (SciDev.Net): As the second wave of COVID-19 infections sweep many countries, governments are facing the challenge of when and how to ease restrictions and lockdowns while balancing health with socio-economic consequences.

A health policy paper published in The Lancet medical journal on 24 September recommends that governments consider five key factors — knowledge of infection levels, community engagement, public health capacity, health system capacity, and border control measures — while lifting restrictions.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that a premature lifting of lockdowns could spark a resurgence of infections and cause worse damage to the economy than caused by lockdowns.

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Vaccines essential for reducing burden of infectious diseases, says Gagandeep Kang

1 Comment read Gender, Health & Science
Photo Credit: © Gagandeep Kang

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 31.08.2020 (SciDev.Net): Internationally renowned for her inter-disciplinary research on transmission, development and prevention of enteric infections and their sequelae in children in India, Gagandeep Kang is the first Indian woman scientist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is a member of the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

Currently, a professor of microbiology in the Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences in her alma mater, the Christian Medical College Vellore, Kang grew up in a science-oriented household, reading Isaac Asimov. She attended 10 schools in 12 years as her father, a mechanical engineer in the Indian Railways, was transferred across northern and eastern India.

The frequent transfers taught her to be adaptable and learn outside the classroom. She spent time learning on her own with help from her parents. They would visit mines to understand about minerals and chemicals. Her father would bring home lenses, concave mirrors and Woulfe bottles and they set up their own lab and herbarium.

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It was meant to be a ground-breaking year for gender equality, but COVID-19 widened inequalities

0 Comments read Education, Gender, Health & Science
Suhana Khan teaching children from her extended family in Kesharpur village in Rajasthan (India). Photo Credit: © Bodh Shiksha Samiti

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 24.07.2020 (IPS): Sixteen-year-old Suhana Khan had just completed her grade 10 exams in March, when India imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, she has been spending her mornings and evenings doing household chores, from cooking and cleaning to fetching drinking water from the tube well.

“I am really missing school. Nearly half the year has gone and we have no books and no teachers to teach. We don’t know if and when we will be able to resume our studies,” Khan, from Kesharpur village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, told IPS. The disappointment is palpable in her voice. While teachers at the local government school are supposed to conduct online classes, most of the 350 households in the village have only one mobile phone with internet connectivity, which male members in the family take to work.

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