Category: Health

As the United Nations plans to commemorate its annual UN Day, come October 24, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is presiding over a world body which has remained locked down since last March because of the spreading coronavirus pandemic.

“In a world turned upside down, this General Assembly Hall is among the strangest sights of all,” said Guterres last month, describing the venue of the UN’s highest policy-making body.

At its 75th anniversary last month, the UN resembled a ghost town, with not a single world leader in sight. But an overwhelming majority did address the UN—remotely via video conferencing, for the first time in the history of the 193-member Organization.

Still, the United States was notoriously missing in action (MIA).

“It was like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark,” remarked one delegate, using a Shakespearean metaphor.

The US, which is traditionally given pride of place as host country to the UN, was not represented either by the President, the Secretary of State or the Permanent Representative to the UN (in that pecking order).

The designated speaker for the commemorative meeting was a deputy US Permanent Representative—way done the political hierarchy.

Vijay Prashad, Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, told IPS the United States stands almost alone in its disdain for the UN and for the goals of the UN Charter of 1945.

Disrespect to the UN at the 75th anniversary meeting comes alongside US withdrawal or pledges to withdraw from UNESCO, UNICEF, UNRWA, and the WHO.

Keep in mind, he said, that the US government has sanctioned senior members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), while US unilateral sanctions against countries such as Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela are a violation of international law.

There is no surprise that no senior official came for the anniversary meeting; in fact, it is to be expected, he added.

The United Nations remains one of the most important institutions committed to international peace and development, declared Prashad, author of thirty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.

Meanwhile, as the lock down continued, the overwhelming majority of over 3,000 staffers at the UN, and its affiliated agencies in New York, are working from home.

Speaking of the 75th anniversary meeting, Barbara Adams, chair of the board of Global Policy Forum and former Chief of Strategic Partnerships and Communications for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), told IPS: “Yet again people around the world were witnesses to the enormous gap between the well- articulated diagnosis of where we are and what needs to be done not only in the face of COVID-19 but also of pre-existing inequalities, vulnerabilities and multi-dimensional violence.

Could it be, she asked, that the UN has been “captured” as the President of Equatorial Guinea lamented: “We cannot accept [either] that after so many years, the Charter of the UN continues to preserve the primacy of the major powers who trample on the legitimate aspirations of the weak so that they can enjoy the advantages of the UN system.””

Joseph Chamie, a former director of the UN Population Division, and currently an independent consulting demographer, told IPS: “In my opinion I did not hear any significant or noteworthy contributions from world leaders who addressed the meeting.

Their statements were not informative, insightful or inspiring. In brief, their remarks were disappointing and unmemorable, he pointed out.

Chamie said the lofty goals, ideals and accomplishments of the United Nations should have been highlighted and stressed.

During the past 75 years, he argued, the United Nations has accomplished much and contributed greatly to many critical areas, including peace, security, human rights, health, education, women’s equality and development.

“In the next 75 years, the United Nations must promote and expand its essential work for a world population now approaching nearly 8 billion, four times its size when the United Nations was established”.

While many challenges remain, including the current pandemic, this is an opportune time for world leaders to support and strengthen the United Nations and work together on effectively addressing the critical issues of today and tomorrow, said Chamie.

“The spirit, leadership and vision of 1945 can be rekindled and the United Nations revitalized for its indispensable role in the 21st century”, he declared.

The final declaration, which was adopted by the 193 member nations, singled out the UN as the only global organization with the power to bring countries together and give “hope to so many people for a better world and … deliver the future we want.”

https://www.un.org/en/un75

“No other global organization gives hope to so many people for a better world and can deliver the future we want. The urgency for all countries to come together, to fulfil the promise of the nations united, has rarely been greater,” the declaration said.

(By Thalif Deen at IPS)

Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy, an advocate of Community and Physician resuscitation education and training for more than three decades in USA and India, is a past President of the Chicago Medical Society and current adjunct Faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois @ Chicago College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois. He is the Founder of Chicago Medical Society’s Community CPR Project SMILE (Saving More Illinois Lives through Education).

 In a recent interview, Dr. Vemuri Murthy shared his thoughts and concerns regarding current status of the out- of- hospital cardiac arrests and diminishing bystander resuscitation help during COVID-19 pandemic. According to the American Heart Association, there are more than 356,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests annually in the U.S. (2018 update).Nearly 90% of them are fatal. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), if performed immediately, can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival. In majority of cases, immediate Hands-only CPR may have similar survival outcomes comparable to the conventional CPR performed with both chest compressions and breaths.

Global evidence-based information has proven that Bystander CPR is life-saving in sudden cardiac arrest. The latter is recognized by sudden collapse of the person without any breathing, pulse or consciousness. It’s important to call 911 first before performing Hands-only CPR. The bystander performing CPR needs to cover the mouth and nose fully with a face mask or cloth. The victim’s mouth and nose must be covered too with a face mask or cloth. Performing Hands-Only CPR involves pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest at a rate of 100 to 120 compressions per minute. Automated External Defibrillator (AED) needs to be utilized as soon as it’s available. This high-quality CPR should be continued by the bystander until the  arrival of paramedics. It’s important to follow the Good Samaritan Laws of a particular US State while performing Bystander CPR.

Personal protection from any potential droplet infection is of paramount importance while managing any person in cardiac arrest, as the COVID-19 status of the victim may be unknown. The bystander needs to thoroughly wash the hands with soap and water after providing CPR.

Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy (Chicago Medical Society’s COVID-19 Task Force) appeals for practicing three basic preventive measures during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Wearing a Mask covering the mouth and nose, Washing Hands with soap and water for 20 seconds, and watching social distancing of at least 6 feet.

Covid-19 deaths worldwide have surpassed 1 million. With new cases of coronavirus infections rapidly mounting again, the numbers of Covid-19 deaths are feared to surge in the coming months. 

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January.

Approximately 60 percent of the 1 million Covid-19 deaths to date have taken place in 6 countries (Figure 1). The United States continues to maintain its dominant lead in Covid-19 deaths as well as in coronavirus cases. With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 21 percent of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide, or approximately 210,000 deaths that have jettison Covid-19 to the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer. 

 The country in second place is Brazil, which with less than 3 percent of the world’s population accounts for 14 percent of all Covid-19 deaths. Brazil is followed by India at 10 percent, Mexico at 8 percent, and the United Kingdom and Italy both at 4 percent.

In several months India is projected to overtake the U.S. as the country with the largest number of  Covid-19 deaths. India’s daily virus-related deaths are currently around 1,100 versus 760 for the U.S. In addition, India’s daily virus infections have surpassed 90,000 compared to about 42,000 for the U.S.

Due to differences in the population size of countries, Covid-19 death rates provide a meaningful comparative perspective on the performances of countries in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. While the Covid-19 death rate for the world is about 130 deaths per million population, the rates of the dozen deadliest countries, which except for the U.S. are located in Latin America and Europe, are about 600 or more Covid-19 deaths per million population (Figure 2).

The top two countries are Peru and Belgium, with rates of 980 and 860 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively. The countries with the next highest death rates of approximately 670 Covid-19 deaths per million population are Spain, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. 

The high Covid-19 death rate of Peru is believed due in part to the country’s poor health system, which failed to conduct effective testing and contact tracing, and the fact that 70 percent of Peruvian workers are in the informal sector with most not able to afford to isolate as they are dependent on daily earnings. 

In the case of Belgium, government officials say their high Covid-19 death rate is likely due to a number of factors including their exceptional way of counting unconfirmed Covid-19 deaths, the high level of elderly placed in care homes and poor initial preparations at home care centers permitting the virus to spread rapidly and have devastating effects. 

In striking contrast to the rates of the deadliest dozen countries are the substantially lower Covid-19 death rates of many other countries around the world. Denmark and Germany, for example, report Covid-19 death rates of 112 and 114 per million population, respectively. Even lower rates are observed in Norway, Australia and Japan, of 50, 35 and 12 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively.

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January

Unfortunately, in many countries a combination of denial, deception and defiance stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming public health evidence concerning the dissemination of the coronavirus and lethality of Covid-19.

The interaction of the pandemic’s fallout with the growth of populism and extremism around the world hindered effective responses. In too many instances, the recommended mitigation measures became politized and openly ignored, denigrated and resisted by some groups.

Some contend that the various public health measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus, including masking wearing, social distancing and sheltering-in-place, are infringements on their liberties and freedoms and constituted unconstitutional violations of their basic rights.

However, it is widely recognized that measures and regulations intended to promote the health and safety of the general public are well within a state’s authority.

Many of the deaths in the high Covid-19 mortality countries likely would have been prevented by the early intervention and widespread use of face masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, sheltering-in-place, testing, contact tracing and related other measures.

Downplaying the threat of the pandemic, making misleading pronouncements, sending confused messages, offering unfounded reassurances, maligning health officials, delaying/resisting public health measures and deflecting blame to others contributed to the disastrous spread of the disease and subsequent rapid rise of Covid-19 deaths in many countries. 

For example, if the United States response to the pandemic had been more successful and had been able to achieve the relatively low Covid-19 death rate of Germany (114 versus 638 per million population), the U.S. Covid-19 death toll would have been approximately 38,000 rather than 210,000.

Even the relatively higher Covid-19 death rate of neighboring Canada (246 deaths per million population) would have more than halved the US death toll, avoiding approximately 130,000 U.S. Covid-19 deaths (Figure 3).

Similarly, the different approaches of Sweden and Denmark resulted in significantly higher Covid-19 death rates for Sweden, 583 versus 112 deaths per million population. While Sweden adopted libertarian policies of minimal regulations perhaps with the aim to achieve herd immunity, Denmark imposed social distancing, mask wearing and related public health measures.

If Sweden had been able to achieve the Covid-19 death rate of nearby Denmark, the Swedish death toll from Covid-19 would have been substantially less, about 1,100 rather than 5,900. 

While in mid-April the world’s daily Covid-19 deaths peaked at around 8,500, the average daily number of deaths near the end of September was approximately 5,300. In recent weeks, however, growing numbers of countries in various regions are reporting surges in daily coronavirus cases.

In the third week of September, nearly 2 million new Covid-19 cases were reported worldwide, the highest number of reported cases in a week since the start of the pandemic. 

In Europe weekly cases are now exceeding those reported when the pandemic first peaked in March. Those growing numbers of coronavirus cases point to the beginning of a second surge of Covid-19 deaths, especially for many of the countries in the northern hemisphere where approaching cold weather will drive more people indoors.  

A vaccine for the coronavirus, which now has approximately three dozen candidates in human trials, is unlikely to be widely available before the expected second wave of the pandemic. If the second wave follows the path that some now fear, the current number of one million Covid-19 deaths could triple in a matter of months.

Moreover, if the world’s Covid-19 death rate were to begin to approach the current level of the United States or the United Kingdom, the million Covid-19 deaths could more than triple in the coming year.

It is widely recognized that a vaccine for the coronavirus will not be 100 percent effective. Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies place the effectiveness of a hoped for vaccine at around 60 percent.  In the United States the Food and Drug Administration has indicated that any coronavirus vaccine must be at least 50 percent effective to secure approval from regulators. 

Some scenarios envision the coronavirus pandemic continuing for the long haul, perhaps for at least several more years. Some fear that an approved vaccine may offer only limited seasonal protection, similar to other coronaviruses in circulation. 

Also, significant numbers may decide to avoid getting inoculated while many others may simply delay their decisions fearing vaccine safety may have been seriously compromised due to political influence. In addition, the global distribution of an approved vaccine may remain limited for some time due to insufficient supplies, relatively high costs for those in low income countries and international political disputes.

Consequently, in order to check the spread of the second and subsequent waves of coronavirus infections and limit the numbers of Covid-19 deaths, public health mitigation measures, including mask wearing, social distancing, hand hygiene, sanitizing, sheltering-in-place, quarantining, testing, contact tracing and staying at home when sick, will remain the primary tools in the medical arsenal to confront the pandemic for the foreseeable future.

(By Joseph Chamieat IPS. He is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.)

Scientists used artificial intelligence to help analyses the dream content of close to a thousand people and found that the novel coronavirus had infected more than half of the distressed dreams reported.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. The researchers crowdsourced sleep and stress data from more than 4,000 people during the sixth week of the COVID-19 lockdown in Finland. About 800 respondents also contributed information about their dreams during that time – many of which revealed shared anxiety about the pandemic.

“We were thrilled to observe repeating dream content associations across individuals that reflected the apocalyptic ambience of COVID-19 lockdown,” said lead author Dr. Anu-Katriina Pesonen, head of the Sleep & Mind Research Group at the University of Helsinki.

“The results allowed us to speculate that dreaming in extreme circumstances reveals shared visual imagery and memory traces, and in this way, dreams can indicate some form of shared mindscape across individuals,” added Pesonen.

“The idea of a shared imagery reflected in dreams is intriguing,” she added. Pesonen and her team transcribed the content of the dreams from Finnish into English word lists and fed the data into an AI algorithm, which scanned for frequently appearing word associations.
The computer built what the researchers called dream clusters from the “smaller dream particles” rather than entire dreams.

Eventually, 33 dream clusters or themes emerged. Twenty of the dream clusters were classified as bad dreams, and 55 per cent of those had pandemic-specific content.

Themes such as failures in social distancing, coronavirus contagion, personal protective equipment, dystopia, and apocalypse were rated as pandemic specific.

For example, word pairs in a dream cluster labelled “Disregard of Distancing” included mistake-hug, hug-handshake, handshake-restriction, handshake-distancing, distancing-disregard, distancing-crowd, crowd-restriction and crowd-party.

“The computational linguistics-based, AI-assisted analytics that we used is really a novel approach in dream research. We hope to see more AI-assisted dream research in future. We hope that our study opened the development towards that direction,” Pesonen said.

The study also offered some insights into the sleep patterns and stress levels of people during the pandemic lockdown. For instance, more than half of respondents reported sleeping more than before the period of self-quarantine, though 10 per cent had a harder time falling asleep and more than a quarter reported more frequent nightmares.

Not surprisingly, more than half of the study participants reported increases in stress levels, which were more closely linked to patterns like fitful sleep and bad dreams. Those most stressed-out also had more pandemic-specific dreams.

The research could provide valuable insights for medical experts who are already assessing the toll the coronavirus is having on mental health. Sleep is a central factor in all mental health issues, according to Pesonen.

“Repeated, intense nightmares may refer to post-traumatic stress. The content of dreams is not entirely random, but can be an important key to understanding what is the essence in the experience of stress, trauma, and anxiety,” she said. (ANI)

 In a large group of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, consumption of a few cups of coffee a day was associated with longer survival and a lower risk of the cancer worsening, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other organizations report in a new study.

The findings, based on data from a large observational study nested in a clinical trial, are in line with earlier studies showing a connection between regular coffee consumption and improved outcomes in patients with non-metastatic colorectal cancer. The study is being published today by JAMA Oncology.

The investigators found that in 1,171 patients treated for metastatic colorectal cancer, those who reported drinking two to three cups of coffee a day were likely to live longer overall, and had a longer time before their disease worsened, than those who didn’t drink coffee. Participants who drank larger amounts of coffee – more than four cups a day – had an even greater benefit in these measures. The benefits held for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.

The findings enabled investigators to establish an association, but not a cause-and-effect relationship, between coffee drinking and reduced risk of cancer progression and death among study participants. As a result, the study doesn’t provide sufficient grounds for recommending, at this point, that people with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer start drinking coffee on a daily basis or increase their consumption of the drink, researchers say.

“It’s known that several compounds in coffee have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and other properties that may be active against cancer,” says Dana-Farber’s Chen Yuan, ScD, the co-first author of the study with Christopher Mackintosh, MLA, of the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. “Epidemiological studies have found that higher coffee intake was associated with improved survival in patients with stage 3 colon cancer, but the relationship between coffee consumption and survival in patients with metastatic forms of the disease hasn’t been known.”

The new study drew on data from the Alliance/SWOG 80405 study, a phase III clinical trial comparing the addition of the drugs cetuximab and/or bevacizumab to standard chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated, locally advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer. As part of the trial, participants reported their dietary intake, including coffee consumption, on a questionnaire at the time of enrollment. Researchers correlated this data with information on the course of the cancer after treatment.

They found that participants who drank two to three cups of coffee per day had a reduced hazard for death and for cancer progression compared to those who didn’t drink coffee. (Hazard is a measure of risk.) Those who consumed more than four cups per day had an even greater benefit.

“Although it is premature to recommend a high intake of coffee as a potential treatment for colorectal cancer, our study suggests that drinking coffee is not harmful and may potentially be beneficial,” says Dana-Farber’s Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, senior author of the study.

“This study adds to the large body of literature supporting the importance of diet and other modifiable factors in the treatment of patients with colorectal cancer,” Ng adds. “Further research is needed to determine if there is indeed a causal connection between coffee consumption and improved outcomes in patients with colorectal cancer, and precisely which compounds within coffee are responsible for this benefit.”

Co-authors of the study are Sui Zhang, MS, Robert J. Mayer, MD, and Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber; Fang-Shu Ou, PhD, and Brian C. Mullen, MS, of the Mayo Clinic; Donna Niedzwiecki, PhD, of Duke University School of Medicine; I-Wen Chang, MD, of Southeast Clinical Oncology Research Consortium, Winston-Salem, N.C.; Bert H. O’Neil, MD, of Indiana University School of Medicine; Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD, of Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; Charles D. Blanke, MD, of Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University; Alan P. Venook, MD, of University of California San Francisco School of Medicine; Charles S. Fuchs, MD, of Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital; Federico Innocenti, M.D., PhD, of Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Andrew B. Nixon, PhD, of Duke Cancer Institute, Duke University Medical Center; Richard M. Goldberg, MD, of West Virginia University Cancer Institute; and Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Cancer Institute (grants U10CA180821, U10CA180882, U10CA180795, U10CA180838, U10CA180867, U24CA196171, UG1CA189858, P50CA127003, R01CA118553, R01CA205406, U10CA180826, U10CA180830, and U10CA180888), the Project P Fund, Genentech, Sanofi, and Pfizer.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the world’s leading centers of cancer research and treatment. Dana-Farber’s mission is to reduce the burden of cancer through scientific inquiry, clinical care, education, community engagement, and advocacy. We provide the latest treatments in cancer for adults through Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and for children through Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Dana-Farber is the only hospital nationwide with a top 10 U.S. News & World Report Best Cancer Hospital ranking in both adult and pediatric care.

As a global leader in oncology, Dana-Farber is dedicated to a unique and equal balance between cancer research and care, translating the results of discovery into new treatments for patients locally and around the world, offering more than 1,100 clinical trials. 

The UNC School of Medicine laboratory of Camille Ehre, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, produced striking images in respiratory tract cultures of the infectious form of the SARS-CoV-2 virus produced by infected respiratory epithelial cells. The New England Journal of Medicine featured this work in its “Images in Medicine” section.

Ehre, a member of the UNC Marsico Lung Institute and the UNC Children’s Research Institute, captured these images to illustrate how intense the SARS-CoV-2 infection of the airways can be in very graphic and easily understood images. Her lab conducted this research in collaboration with the labs of Ralph Baric, PhD, the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health, who holds a joint faculty appointment at the UNC Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Richard Boucher, MD, the James C. Moeser Eminent Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of the Marsico Lung Institute at the UNC School of Medicine.

In a laboratory setting, the researchers inoculated the SARS-Co-V-2 virus into human bronchial epithelial cells, which were then examined 96 hours later using scanning electron microscopy.

The images, two of which are re-colorized here by UNC medical student Cameron Morrison, show infected ciliated cells with strands of mucus (yellow) attached to cilia tips (blue). Cilia are the hair-like structures on the surface of airway epithelial cells that transport mucus (and trapped viruses) from the lung. A higher power magnification image shows the structure and density of SARS-CoV-2 virions (red) produced by human airway epithelia. Virions are the complete, infectious form of the virus released onto respiratory surfaces by infected host cells.

This imaging research helps illustrate the incredibly high number of virions produced and released per cell inside the human respiratory system. The large viral burden is a source for spread of infection to multiple organs of an infected individual and likely mediates the high frequency of COVID-19 transmission to others.  These images make a strong case for the use of masks by infected and uninfected individuals to limit SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The National Institutes of Health and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation funded this research. 

In what could possibly be the world’s largest and fastest ever procurement and supply of vaccines, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has said that it will lead efforts for Covid-19 vaccine supply for 92 low and lower middle-income countries.

These efforts will be part of the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (Covax Facility) plans led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Vaccine purchases for these countries will be supported by the mechanism through the Gavi Advance Market Commitment for Covid-19 Vaccines (Gavi Covax AMC) as well as a buffer stockpile for humanitarian emergencies, Unicef said.

In addition, the UN agency will also serve as the procurement coordinator to support procurement by 80 higher-income economies, which have expressed their intent to participate in the Covax Facility and would finance the vaccines from their own public finance budgets.

Unicef will undertake these efforts in close collaboration with the WHO, Gavi, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners.

The Covax Facility is open to all countries to ensure that no country is left without access to a future Covid-19 vaccine.

“This is an all-hands on deck partnership between governments, manufacturers and multilateral partners to continue the high stakes fight against the Covid-19 pandemic,” Henrietta Fore, Unicef Executive Director, said in a statement.

“In our collective pursuit of a vaccine, Unicef is leveraging its unique strengths in vaccine supply to make sure that all countries have safe, fast and equitable access to the initial doses when they are available,” the statement read.

Unicef is the largest single vaccine buyer in the world, procuring more than two billion doses of vaccines annually for routine immunisation and outbreak response on behalf of nearly 100 countries.In response to an expression of interest that Unicef issued in June on behalf of the Covax Facility, 28 manufacturers with production facilities in 10 countries shared their annual production plans for Covid-19 vaccines through 2023.

According to the timelines indicated by the manufacturers, the span from development to production could be one of the fastest scientific and manufacturing leaps in history, the organisation said.

A Unicef market assessment, developed by compiling information submitted by the vaccine manufacturers along with publicly available data, revealed that manufacturers are willing to collectively produce unprecedented quantities of vaccines over the coming one to two years. However, manufacturers signalled that investments to support such large-scale production of doses would be highly dependent on, among other things, whether clinical trials are successful, advance purchase agreements are put in place, funding is confirmed, and regulatory and registration pathways are streamlined. 

There is hardly anyone whose life has not been touched by suicide in one way or another. September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day. Let us take this opportunity to remember those whose lives have been affected by suicide, raise awareness, and take steps to prevent suicide.

Did you know that asking a depressed person about suicide thoughts does not amount to suggesting suicide or increasing the likelihood of suicide? By asking, you are not going to put a thought in their heads. In fact, asking often opens up a dialogue and a feeling of relief.

People often believe that suicide is not preventable. This is not true. There are 20 million people who attempt suicide. Most of them go on to live and not die by suicide. There are many factors that contribute to suicide. One of the most important factors is untreated mental illness, e.g., severe depression among many other conditions. Ninety percent of those who die by suicide had untreated mental illness.

Some of the reasons for not seeking treatment for mental illness include stigma and shame associated with mental illness, not understanding mental illness, myths associated with mental illness and available treatments, difficulty finding culturally competent care, financial reasons, and so on. Often, people have a tendency to deny and refuse to accept the idea of mental illness. I have often heard, “such things don’t happen in our family; we are educated and successful . . . mental illness affects weak people. We are strong.” Mental illness is not a disease of the “weak.” It affects people from every socioeconomic, ethnic, racial, cultural, and national background.

Some people choose to seek traditional interventions like yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, and so on instead of conventional treatments like medications and psychotherapy. Traditional interventions can be valuable when used in conjunction with conventional treatments. Often, people are not aware that there are many safe and effective treatments available for mental illness.  Their fears of treatments are often based on misperceptions of treatments. When treatments are delayed, it is harder and takes longer for the illness to respond to treatment. Sometimes, untreated mental illness results in a tragedy.

Preventing suicide is everyone’s business. The goal of suicide prevention is reducing the factors that increase the risk and increasing the factors that promote resilience (i.e., protective factors).  Learn more about the risk and protective factors. It is also important to become familiar with the warning signs of suicide.

Those who have lost someone to suicide are left with many unanswered questions and are plagued with guilt, shame, and a host of other confusing emotions. They suffer in silence. If you or someone you know has lost someone to suicide, consider attending a Suicide Loss Survivor Support group. You can find a Suicide Loss Survivor Support group near you. In Central New Jersey SAMHIN offers a free weekly support group, Janani for anyone who has lost someone to suicide. Talking about the loss can ease your burden.

Download Light at the End of the Tunnel to learn more about depression, myths about suicide, and tips on suicide prevention. Also see additional suicide prevention and suicide survivor resources.If you or someone you know is faced with a crisis, call National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).