Remdesivir not a Ramban: Dr Trehan

New Delhi/ Mumbai/ Lucknow: Medanta Chairman Dr Naresh Trehan on Wednesday said less percentage of people require hospitalisation. The hospital beds should be utilised judiciously and with responsibility. This responsibility rests on all of us.

" We have now made a protocol that Remdesivir to be given not to everyone who tests Covid-19 positive. Only after doctors look at test results, symptoms, comorbidities of a patient, then, it is to be given. Remdesivir isn't a 'Ramban', it only decreases viral load in people who need it."

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' tested positive on Wednesday. The 61-year-old minister said he is following medical advice after his report came positive.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has called off a planned visit to India and the Philippines, government sources said Wednesday, apparently due to a resurgence of coronavirus infections in Japan. He follows in UK PM Boris Johnson's lead.

Around 39 women inmates of the Byculla Women's Jail, including murder-accused Indrani Mukerjea have tested Covid-19 positive and have been shifted to an isolation centre, official sources said here on Wednesday.

The development came after around 80 prisoners and jail officials tested positive during the last weekend, including a woman from the Byculla Women's Jail.

Later, tests were carried out on the approximately 350 women there from which around 39 tested positive, but mostly with mild Covid symptoms.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi castigated the Centre for not taking the opposition parties into confidence even when the nation was facing an unprecedented health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Emphasising that this was a moment for the entire nation to stand together, she hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government for allegedly ridiculing even his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh's earnest recommendations.

Targeting PM Modi himself in an interview with ANI, she said he must now stop his "public relations exercise" and talk to the people and opposition parties over the crisis. The Congress General Secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh claimed the Centre was willing to talk to even Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, but not Opposition leaders.