Category: Health

Medicine ´pump´ may cure Parkinson´s patients

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PARIS: People suffering from advanced Parkinson´s disease could benefit long-term from continuous delivery of medication through a device similar to an insulin pump, a recent French study found. Published in Nature Partner Journals with the Parkinson´s Foundation, the real-world observational study followed 110 patients being treated at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris.

The second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer´s, Parkinson´s is sometimes treated with the medication apomorphine to lessen symptoms such as shaking, stiffness or slowness of movement. It helps replace the dopamine typically lacking in Parkinson´s patients, but taken orally it can cause dopamine to spike and then drop, leading to dyskinesia or muscle spasms. “For those patients, continuous delivery is a good option,” study co-author and neurologist Emmanuel Flamand-Roze told media.

A randomised, placebo-controlled study of Parkinson´s patients in 23 European hospitals already found in 2018 that medication administered using the device reduced “off-time” — the period when symptoms worsen as medication wears off. Flamand-Roze said his real-world observational study provided an essential compliment to the randomised trial, which looked at patients over a period of 12 weeks.

Citi Pharma IPO oversubscribed by 2 times

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Company Raises 2.32 Billion in Book Building

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) The book-building process of Citi Pharma’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) has concluded with an oversubscription of 2 times, according to Topline Securities, advisor and book runner of the issue.

 “The IPO received an overwhelming response from institutional investors and high-net worth individuals as the strike price clocked in at Rs 32/share, 14.3% higher than the floor price of Rs28,” the leading API Manufacturer of the country said in a statement. 

Citi Pharma has raised Rs 2.32 billion in total, making it the second Pharma sector IPO in 23 years and the single largest IPO of 2021 till date.   

“The response to the book building was far better than our expectations” said Mohammed Sohail of Topline Securities. In the last IPO (Organic Meat) managed by Topline investors have made a gain of close to 90% in a year 

Several brokerages had had issued almost unanimous calls to ‘subscribe,’ which resulted in investor demand amounting to Rs 4 billion against the IPO’s book-building size of Rs 2 billion. Investors who bid at PKR 32 will get approx. 10% of their bid quantity.  

The general public will subscribe to the remaining 18.1 million shares (25 percent of the total offer size) on June 23/24 at the strike price of Rs 32” the company said. 

Rizwan Ahmed, CEO Citi Pharma, in his message thanked investors for their overwhelming response and vowed to ensure growth of their shareholders’ equity.

Omar Salah Ahmed – Head of Corporate Finance & Advisory at Topline added “Citi Pharma is one of the most unique companies in Pakistan’s pharma sector and this expansion will bring in a new phase for the Company. We wish them all the best for the future as well as the investors – who will no doubt be a part of a great growth story. Investors have responded to the future growth” 

Citi Pharma plans to become first fully integrated listed pharmaceutical company in Pakistan, serving from raw material consumers to end medicine consumers.

Citi Pharma has achieved a revenue growth from PKR 1,016 million in FY16 to PKR 3,528 million in FY20. Showcasing 36.2% CAGR in 5 years. The company recorded PKR 4,015 million in sales during 9MFY21 already surpassing last year’s sales. 

Company is planning to expand its existing capacity of 3,600 tonnes per annum of paracetamol to 6,000 tonnes per annum. In addition, the company says it plans to add new APIs as well as a pharmaceutical formulation, or final products, to its existing product line.

Citi Pharma also wants to build three manufacturing facilities, taking its total capacity to 200,000 vials/injectables per day, dry powder/suspension to 60,000 bottles per day, capsules to 4.2 million per day, and tablets to 4.5 million per day. These include dedicated manufacturing lines for penicillin, cephalosporin, and psychotropic and narcotics drugs.

Punjab faces Covid vaccine shortage, Yasmin says stocks available

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UT Desk- LAHORE: The shortage of Covid vaccine has forced the authorities to close two vaccination centres/camps in Lahore while some others in the rest of the province may face closure.

There are reports that only a day`s stock of the Covid vaccine is left in Punjab, an official privy to the information told media.

He says following the shortage of the vaccine, the health authorities have closed down the centre/camp established at the Lahore Press Club and the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) while the situation in some other centres of the city seems uncertain.

Recently, the Punjab government has increased the Covid vaccination centres to 657 across the province, including 57in Lahore.

Reports suggest that many people are being denied vaccine, particularly in Lahore, due to its scarcity.

The of ficial says in order to avoid criticism, the staffers are administering second dose of the vaccine, while denying first dose to people.

Punjab Health Minister Prof Dr Yasmin Rashid has confirmed that the provincial authorities have stock of vaccine for three days only.

In a statement, she says the health teams were administering vaccine to 240,000 citizens daily in Punjab against 430,000, a target set by the National Command and Operation Centre.

People over 18 years can receive AstraZeneca

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NUT Desk- ISLAMABAD: Keeping in view the inconvenience being faced by people intending to travel abroad, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has amended its guidelines on the use of AstraZeneca vaccine to facilitate them.

Under the new guidelines, people over the age of 18 years can now be administered AstraZeneca.

Earlier, those aged above 40 years were eligible to receive the vaccine.

On the other hand, Pakistan recorded 838 positive cases, the lowest number detected in the last seven months.

On Tuesday, a large number of people intending to travel abroad staged a protest in Islamabad after they were refused to be given Pfizer vaccine at the F-9 Park vaccination centre.

The protesters demanded that they be inoculated with Pfizer since it was accredited by Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries.

Talking to media, the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) spokesperson, Sajid Shah, said only two vaccines Pfizer and AstraZeneca were approved by Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries.

`We have only 100,000 doses of Pfizer which can be administered to only50,000 people as each person is given two doses. The vaccine is also being administered to immune-compromised persons after it was decided that individuals suffering from chronic diseases such as cancer be given Pfizer,` he said.

Lowest Covid-19 positive cases recorded: NCOC

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NUT Desk – ISLAMABAD: The country on Tuesday recorded the lowest number of positive cases reported in a day for the past two weeks of June; the national tally of total active COVID-19 cases was recorded 40,929 with 838 more people tested positive for the deadly virus and 1,576 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours.

Fifty-nine corona patients have died during past 24 hours, 56 of whom were under treatment in hospitals and three out of the hospitals in their respective quarantines or homes, according to the latest update issued by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

During the past 24 hours, most of the deaths have occurred in the Punjab followed by Sindh.

Out of the total 59 deaths occurred in the last 24 hours 17 of them had died who were under treatment on ventilators.

There were 2,611 Covid infected patients under treatment in critical care with 15 patients brought into various Covid dedicated healthcare facilities in past 24 hours.

The National Covid positivity ratio during past 24 hours was recorded 2.39 percent.

It may be mentioned here that the Covid positivity ratio was the percentage of actual positive cases appearing in every 100 tests performed to identify infected individuals.

The maximum ventilators were occupied in four major areas including Peshawar 20 percent, Lahore 24 percent, Bahawalpur 24 percent and Multan 40 percent.

Land degradation hits humans, species and intensifies climate change

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NUT Desk- UNITED NATIONS: The President of United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram, Monday said the degradation of one-fifth Earth’s land area was undermining the well-being of 3.2 billion people worldwide, driving species to extinction and intensifying climate change, and urged boosting of remedial steps.

“The effects of unsustainable land management practices and demographic pressure on land degradation and desertification are also being exacerbated worldwide due to the effects of climate change,” he said while speaking in the UN General Assembly’s High-level Dialogue on Desertification and Land Degradation.

These include — but are not limited to — changing rainfall patterns, increased frequency and intensity of drought and floods, rising temperatures, and profound ecological shifts, the ECOSOC chief said, pointing out populations’ abilities to generate livelihoods were becoming limited, particularly in the dry lands.

“This has also led to increased poverty, malnutrition, migration, political insecurity, and conflict,” he said while underscoring the urgency of the situation being created by the phenomenon of desertification and land degradation.

These losses resulted from direct and indirect factors, including deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices, land use change and urbanization, Ambassador Akram said.

Noting that commitments to land restoration are estimated at 1 billion hectares, out of which 450 million hectares are committed through land degradation neutrality targets, he said the progress achieved thus far in that regard was highly encouraging.

India missed early alarm, let deadly coronavirus spread: exdperts

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NUT Desk- NEW DELHI: A veteran public health expert warned top Indian officials in early March that a new variant of the coronavirus was spreading quickly in a rural district in the heart of the country and that the outbreak required urgent attention.

Federal health authorities failed to respond adequately to that warning, Dr Subhash Salunke, who has 30 years of experience in public health in India, Indonesia and the United States, told media.

The variant, now known as B.1.617, triggered a catastrophic wave of coronavirus cases in India and has since spread to more than 40 other countries. In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) termed it a “variant of concern,” citing its high transmissibility.

The variant’s first impact was detected months earlier in the Amravati district of the western state of Maharashtra, where health authorities recorded a rapid increase in coronavirus infections in early February, even as cases fell elsewhere in India.

Pakistanis may travel to Saudi Arabia after AstraZeneca jab

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NUT Desk- ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan Tuesday said that Pakistanis travelling to Saudi Arabia can get the AstraZeneca vaccine after showing documents at the mass vaccination centres.

The country’s top health official shared that the government has decided to revise guidelines for AstraZeneca vaccines and will allow citizens who are 18 or older to get the jab which was earlier restricted to those aged over 40.

Protests had erupted across the country asking the government to allow the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The kingdom has only approved Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, while in Pakistan, Chinese vaccines are mostly being used.

The SAPM said that Pakistanis who are travelling to Saudi Arabia can get the Oxford vaccine after showing their documents, adding that the government is in talks with Saudi health officials to allow Chinese vaccines.

Earlier, in May, the Pakistani health authorities had restricted the use of Oxford for people under 40.“(On the recommendations of an expert committee), we have updated the interim guidelines (for the use of  vaccine AZD1222) today. There are two key changes: Use among less than 40 years be restricted irrespective of gender (till the availability of further data). 2. Interval between doses fixed 12 weeks instead of range of 8-12 weeks mentioned in an earlier version,” Director General Health Pakistan Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar had told the English Newspaper.

He had maintained that both above changes will lead to operational ease and added that guidelines remain interim as new data from around the world keeps pouring.

Pfizer and BioNTech approved by DRAP

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Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)

“We are pleased to announce that Pfizer and BioNTech have received an emergency use authorization from the The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to supply its COVID-19 vaccine in Pakistan’s immunization program. We commend the Government of Pakistan for its careful assessment of our COVID-19 vaccine and timely action to help protect the people of the country. This marks a historic moment further affirming Pfizer’s commitment to the people of Pakistan”. said S. M. Wajeeh, Country Manager Pfizer Pakistan. “We are proud of the fact that a COVAX shipment with Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines have arrived in the country.”

Chughtai Healthcare takes initiative to support thalassemia patients to get timely blood transfusions.

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Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of blood donations have reduced and thalassemia patients are facing a shortage of blood supply. To help the thalassemia patients get timely blood transfusions, Chughtai Healthcare is conducting blood drives at various locations across Lahore. The launch of this initiative will be at the head office where the CEO Chughtai Healthcare Dr. A. S Chughtai gave blood on Monday, 14th June 2021.

In Pakistan a blood transfusion is needed every 2 seconds. More than half of Pakistanis can safely donate blood, but only 5% actually are blood donors. The other 95% are relying on these donors if they ever need a blood transfusion.

Dr. A. S. Chughtai stressed upon the important of blood donations as 1 bag of blood can save up to 3 lives. He further shared his vision for a healthier Pakistan through different initiatives at Chughtai Healthcare.  Dr. Omar Chughtai, Director Operations along with other team members also donated blood during the event.

Throughout the month, Chughtai Healthcare will conduct blood drives at various sites of corporate organizations.

People can sign up for the onsite blood drive by calling at 03-111-456-789.