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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingIndia’s devastating second Covid wave has left thousands of families reeling from unspeakable grief. Each ordeal is a story of how neglect, unpreparedness and a poorly thought-out vaccine strategy has resulted in so many deaths. Here is Altuf Shamsi’s story in his own words, as told to the BBC.In early April, we were a happy family. My wife Rehab and I were expecting our third child. Our gynaecologist had advised us to come to the hospital no later than 22 April. The plan was to have the baby the next day as Rehab was already in the 38th week of her pregnancy. She took a Covid test as per protocol – but, to our shock, the result returned positive. We knew the hospital did not admit Covid positive patients, but our gynaecologist suggested we postpone the delivery as Rehab still had some time. She said we should focus on getting her treated for Covid. A few days later, Rehab developed a high fever and on 28 April, we admitted her to a Covid hospital on her doctor’s advice. The next say, the doctor said we could lose the baby since Rehab was on strong medication. In the evening, her condition worsened and she was put on oxygen support. Doctors decided to deliver the baby through an emergency C-section.The hospital made us sign documents which said that there were high chances of her bleeding to death. It was like jumping off a cliff and hoping that you will land safely.image copyrightGetty ImagesThe hospital also asked me to find an ICU bed in another hospital as Rehab was likely to be intubated after the surgery – and would need a full-fledged Covid treatment, which they couldn’t provide. At this point, I forgot that we were having a baby. The only thing on my mind was to save Rehab. While I was preparing myself mentally for the surgery, bad news arrived. My father, who had also tested positive and had been admitted to another hospital in Delhi, was deteriorating.My mother, also positive, was still at home on mild oxygen support. She didn’t even know that her husband and daughter-in-law were battling for life. My world seemed on the verge of collapsing. I was praying for their recovery, while hunting for an ICU bed. On 29 April, my baby girl was born. The hospital moved Rehab to a makeshift ICU since I hadn’t been able to find a place elsewhere. The hospital did not have enough nurses and by now, I was Covid positive too, but I decided to take the risk and stay by Rehab’s bedside. I had to constantly remind the nurses about her medication. They kept telling me to move her elsewhere. I called everyone I knew to find a bed with a ventilator. image copyrightGetty ImagesFinally, I found an ICU bed, but there was no ambulance with life-support available to move her. I pleaded with the hospital to keep treating her and they did everything they could to save her. I will never forget 1 May. Several hospitals were reporting a severe shortage of oxygen. The staff at the hospital where Rehab was admitted said they were also close to running out of oxygen and asked me to arrange for cylinders. In the evening, I got a call from my father’s hospital that he was deteriorating fast. By the time I reached there, he had died.I was numb. I was looking at his body, while reading SOS messages from Rehab’s hospital for oxygen. My mother was also not doing well and my two daughters – seven and five – were asking why their mother was not yet home with their new sibling as promised. I had the difficult task of telling my mother that her partner of 42 years was gone. He was the family’s protector. With him gone, I felt more vulnerable. I buried him and rushed back to Rehab’s hospital to find her condition also deteriorating. For the next 11 days, I kept swinging between hope and despair. Every day, I was told that Rehab was doing slightly better but was still critical. Two days later, her kidneys needed support and she was put on dialysis. But as her oxygen saturation started to improve, I was told to leave the ward. I was told I could see her after two days when they planned to take her off the ventilator. Later the same day at around 8pm, the private nurse I had hired to be with Rehab told me that her vitals were stable. I went home to check on my mother and my daughters. At 11pm, the hospital called, asking me to return immediately. With my heart pounding, I rushed back, but by the time I reached, Rehab was no more. The hospital staff told me that there was “a cardiac issue”. I was completely broken. I was trying to be strong, taking care of my family, and I was hoping to see my wife and talk to her the next day. But now my world, which had been on the verge of collapse, had shattered. image copyrightGetty ImagesThe only thought I had was how was I going to tell my girls that their mother was never coming home? I still haven’t told them. I just don’t know how to do this. They ask me every day about her and I tell them that she is still in the hospital. My sister is helping me look after the new baby.Rehab was not just a wonderful woman, but a loveable and caring mother, wife, daughter and daughter-in-law. She was fearless and confident and that is why she fought so hard. She didn’t get to see our newborn baby, but I am going to treat her as a gift that Rehab has left for us. I am trying to be a father and a mother to my girls, but I can never fill the vacuum Rehab has left in our lives.I keep thinking is there something more I could have done to save her? Would she have lived if I’d found a better hospital? There are no easy answers, but I definitely believe that access to Covid vaccines can save many women like Rehab. She may have survived if she was vaccinated. But no vaccine was available for her and the government is yet to approve a jab for pregnant women who are at risk of getting severe Covid.I lost the shining light of my life and I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through. Goodbye Rehab, I will see you on the other side.As told to the BBC’s Vikas Pandey

People around the world have thanked an 84-year-old YouTuber for helping them cope with anxieties about the coronavirus pandemic.John Butler has attracted millions of views and more than 120,000 subscribers with his philosophical videos about life and meditation.The softly spoken ex-farmer became an unlikely YouTube star when an interview he gave in 2016 became popular with the online Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) community.ASMR is a tingly feeling some people get when they hear quiet, whispery noises.”I think John’s videos bring with them so much freedom in a time where we feel so physically restricted,” UK viewer Jasmine Butcher said.Mr Butler, from Bakewell, Derbyshire, said: “I’d never heard of YouTube. Hardly knew what internet was.”Video journalist: Alex ThorpFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersThe Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she felt “shame and guilt” after being told she had HPV (human papillomavirus) in her 20s.She said stigma and confusion about the common virus must be broken down so that others do not experience the same thing.More women in the UK are being told they have it because of changes to the way smear tests work in recent years.Phillips says it should not put people off attending cervical screenings.Most sexually active people will contract HPV, which is passed on through sexual contact, at some point.In most cases, they do not know they have it, and it clears without treatment – but it can cause cell mutations that can ultimately develop into cervical cancer, and some other cancers.Cervical cancer is by far the most common HPV-related disease, according to the WHO, and nearly all cases of cervical cancer can be attributed to HPV infection.HPV puts ‘strain’ on sex and dating’Huge pressure’ to catch up on missed smear testsMs Phillips was 22 when changes to cells in her cervix were detected. Her doctor told her she may not be able to have children because she also had endometriosis, a condition that means bodily tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other parts of the body.Sharing her story with the BBC before Cervical Screening Awareness Week, she said: “I felt like it was my fault, that I had done something wrong, because I had HPV.”The MP for Birmingham Yardley, now 39, added: “It’s sexually transmitted so there was always this sense that it was somehow my doing and that I could have avoided this.”Because she knew little about HPV, she said she did not know what to expect when she did become pregnant that year, and worried that it could affect her unborn child. “It seems that relatively little has changed in regards to HPV – the level of knowledge, how it is viewed, and how it is spoken about,” she said. “I feel saddened that there are still so many women and people with a cervix, finding out they have HPV, feeling terrified about their future and possibly blaming themselves.”HPV and smear tests: The factsAround 80% of sexually active adults will contract one of more than 200 strains of HPV at some point in their livesRoughly 90% of infections go away by themselves within two yearsAbout 73% of people invited for smear tests – anyone aged between 25 and 64 and registered as female at their GP surgery – attendIn the UK, 3,200 women get cervical cancer every yearSmear tests used to aim to detect cell changes. However, since 2018 in Wales, 2019 in England, and 2020 in Scotland, all tests have screened for HPV first.That enables them to work out more accurately – and earlier on – who is at a higher risk of cervical cancer. It also means more women are being told they have HPV.Ms Phillips stressed people should not be put off by the prospect of being told they have HPV and that talking about it more would stop people being “lumbered” with “emotional baggage”.”Anyone can get HPV and anyone can pass it on,” she said. “The fact that it is mostly women dealing with the fall out is simply not fair.”Samantha Dixon, chief executive of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, said around one in four people invited for smear tests in the UK do not attend.”Some might simply forget to book an appointment, and other barriers include trauma, pain, a busy lifestyle or a perceived lack of importance of the test,” she said. “The Covid-19 pandemic has also presented another new barrier.”Ms Phillips said anyone struggling with a HPV diagnosis should not “feel ashamed”.”Please don’t blame yourself,” she said. “I want to make sure no-one feels as bad about this as I once did.”

A new imaging technique has the potential to detect neurological disorders — such as Alzheimer’s disease — at their earliest stages, enabling physicians to diagnose and treat patients more quickly. Termed super-resolution, the imaging methodology combines position emission tomography (PET) with an external motion tracking device to create highly detailed images of the brain. This research was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting.
In brain PET imaging, the quality of the images is often limited by unwanted movements of the patient during scanning. In this study, researchers utilized super-resolution to harness the typically undesired head motion of subjects to enhance the resolution in brain PET.
Moving phantom and non-human primate experiments were performed on a PET scanner in conjunction with an external motion tracking device that continuously measured head movement with extremely high precision. Static reference PET acquisitions were also performed without inducing movement. After data from the imaging devices were combined, researchers recovered PET images with noticeably higher resolution than that achieved in the static reference scans.
“This work shows that one can obtain PET images with a resolution that outperforms the scanner’s resolution by making use, counterintuitively perhaps, of usually undesired patient motion,” said Yanis Chemli, MSc, PhD, candidate at the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging in Boston, Massachusetts. “Our technique not only compensates for the negative effects of head motion on PET image quality, but it also leverages the increased sampling information associated with imaging of moving targets to enhance the effective PET resolution.”
While this super-resolution technique has only been tested in preclinical studies, researchers are currently working on extending it to human subjects. Looking to the future, Chemli noted the important impact that super-resolution may have on brain disorders, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. “Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the presence of tangles composed of tau protein. These tangles start accumulating very early on in Alzheimer’s disease — sometimes decades before symptoms — in very small regions of the brain. The better we can image these small structures in the brain, the earlier we may be able to diagnose and, perhaps in the future, treat Alzheimer’s disease,” he noted.
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The caterpillars, known as browntail moths, have tiny hairs that can cause skin rashes and even breathing issues for some people.While parts of the country deal with swarms of cicadas this summer, Maine is struggling with an infestation of an invasive species of caterpillar with poisonous hairs that can cause people to develop painful rashes and even breathing problems.The caterpillars, known as browntail moths, are about 1.5 inches long and have white dashes down their sides and two red dots on their backs.Browntail moths are most common along Maine’s coast and on Cape Cod, but they’ve been spotted this year in all of Maine’s 16 counties, said Jim Britt, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.“People are finding them everyplace: on the ground, on the picnic table, on the electrical box, on the corner — you name it,” Mr. Britt said. “They are heavily present. Folks will see them all over.”“We are in the midst of an outbreak,” he said.The caterpillars have tiny poisonous hairs that can remain toxic for as long as three years, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services warned.After people come in contact with the caterpillar’s hairs, they can develop a red and bumpy rash similar to a reaction to poison ivy that can linger for a few hours to several weeks, the department said. If the hairs are inhaled, some people can develop breathing issues.Other people, like Mr. Britt who said he recently came across the caterpillars in a park, develop no symptoms.“They were everywhere, and I had absolutely no reaction to them,” he said.There’s no specific treatment for the rash, other than remedies like calamine lotion, the department said.In Waterville, Maine, a city about 20 miles north of Augusta, the caterpillar infestation has gotten so out of control that the mayor called an emergency meeting of the City Council to declare a public health emergency and order insecticide.“After a pandemic year, while we are finally able to start getting out and socializing, this is the last thing we want to be dealing with,” the mayor, Jay Coelho, said at the meeting, adding that he had received several emails from Waterville residents with pictures of painful rashes.The caterpillars spend the winter in oak trees and other hardwood trees, and emerge in the spring, Mr. Britt said.Browntail moths are not new to Maine, which has had them for a century. The caterpillars originally came from Massachusetts, but ended up in Maine “because they’re expert hitchhikers,” Mr. Britt said.While it’s unclear what exactly caused this recent infestation, Mr. Britt said dry conditions are “absolutely ideal” for browntail moths to expand their reach.During the Waterville emergency meeting, a City Council member, Thomas Klepach, expressed concern that climate change could worsen infestations in years to come.“It is wise for the city to get the outbreak under control as much as we can now,” Mr. Klepach said, “and to recognize that this may be on ongoing problem.”Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services recommends showering and changing clothes after being in areas with browntail moths, wearing a mask and goggles when doing outdoor activities, such as raking leaves, and doing yardwork on wet days.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingLeaders of the major industrial nations have pledged one billion Covid vaccine doses to poor countries as a “big step towards vaccinating the world”, Boris Johnson has said.At the end of the G7 summit in Cornwall, the PM said countries were rejecting “nationalistic approaches”.He said vaccinating the world would show the benefits of the G7’s democratic values.There was also a pledge to wipe out their contribution to climate change.After the first meeting of world leaders in two years, Mr Johnson said “the world was looking to us to reject some of the selfish, nationalistic approaches that marred the initial global response to the pandemic and to channel all our diplomatic, economic and scientific might to defeating Covid for good”.He said the G7 leaders had pledged to supply the vaccines to poor countries either directly or through the World Health Organization’s Covax scheme – including 100 million from the UK.The communique issued by the summit pledges to “end the pandemic and prepare for the future by driving an intensified international effort, starting immediately, to vaccinate the world by getting as many safe vaccines to as many people as possible as fast as possible”. It also includes steps to tackle climate change, with leaders re-committing to the target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the latest and pledging to eliminate most coal power. What difference could G7 vaccine donations make?In Pictures: World leaders bask in Cornwall sun at G7 summitHow significant are G7’s climate pledges?Has this been a G7 summit that mattered?Mr Johnson rejected suggestions the vaccines pledge was a moral failure by the G7 as it was not enough to cover the needs of poorer countries.He referred to the the UK’s involvement in the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.”Already of the 1.5 billion vaccines that have been distributed around the world, I think that people in this country should be very proud that half a billion of them are as a result of the actions taken by the UK government in doing that deal with the Oxford scientists and AstraZeneca to distribute it at cost,” he said.He added that “we are going flat out and we are producing vaccines as fast as we can, and distributing them as fast as we can”.The target to vaccinate the world by the end of next year would be met “very largely thanks to the efforts of the countries who have come here today”, Mr Johnson said.The leaders slightly exceeded their target of donating a billion Covid vaccines to poorer countries within the next year, if funding for future doses is included alongside individual jabs. There was also a commitment to build the frameworks to prevent and fight future pandemics. Elsewhere in the 25-page communique, there were several references to China, which President Biden said was a change from previous meetings of the world’s advanced economies. Pledges made this time included working together to respond to China’s impact on world trade. On the recovery from Covid there was even a reference to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s trademark domestic policy – the need to reduce inequalities by “levelling up”.Charities and campaigners issued statements calling out vague promises and missed opportunities, but Mr Johnson will feel that post-Brexit Britain has staged a diplomatic show that was both competent and confident.Mr Johnson also dismissed the suggestion that patents for vaccines should be waived in order to boost global supply, something which the US backed last month.He said he wanted to protect “incentives for innovation” while building up manufacturing capacity, especially in Africa.Elsewhere in their communique, G7 leaders also pledged to: improve early warning systems to prepare for future health crisesphase out coal-fired power stations without carbon capture technology and raise $100bn (£70bn) to help poorer countries cut emissionssupport a green revolution that creates jobs, cuts emissions and seeks to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degreesreinvigorate their economies “with plans that create jobs, invest in infrastructure, drive innovation, support people, and level up so that no place or person, irrespective of age, ethnicity or gender is left behind””build back better” by establishing a clean, green growth fund for infrastructure developments in developing countries respond to China’s impact on world trade and challenge practices which “undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy”call on China to respect human rights, especially in relation to Xinjiang, where it has been accused of abuses against Uyghur Muslimsget 40 million more girls into education by 2026image copyrightGetty ImagesThe communique calls for a “timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based WHO-convened” investigation into the origins of Covid-19.US President Joe Biden has previously said the US intelligence community is split on whether coronavirus came from human contact with an infected animal or from a lab accident – a theory rejected by China.Mr Johnson said “the advice that we’ve had is it doesn’t look as though this particular disease of zoonotic origin came from a lab”, but he added: “Clearly anybody sensible would want to keep an open mind about that”.French President Emmanuel Macron said the international community needed clarity about the origins of the virus but said it was up to the WHO to investigate.’Missed opportunity’With G7 countries accounting for 20% of carbon emissions, Mr Johnson said: “We were clear this weekend that action needs to start with us.”But pressed on the lack of binding agreements and timetables, the prime minister says he will not “pretend our work is done” and he will be “on everybody’s case” to make further progress ahead of the COP26 summit in Scotland later this year.Kirsty McNeill from Crack the Crises, a coalition of charities and NGOs including Save the Children and Oxfam, said the G7 summit was a “historic missed opportunity” on Covid-19 and climate change.Leaders arrived “with good intentions but without their cheque books”, she said.Joanna Rea, from Unicef UK, said the G7 pledge on vaccines was “the beginning of the action required to end this pandemic” but called for a “rapid acceleration of dose sharing in the next three months to ensure millions of vaccines get to the people in countries who need them the most”.

A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a lawsuit brought by employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who had challenged the hospital’s Covid vaccination requirement.U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, in the Southern District of Texas, issued a ruling on Saturday that upheld the hospital’s new policy, announced in April. The judge said the hospital’s decision to mandate inoculations for its employees was consistent with public policy.And he rejected the claim by Jennifer Bridges, a nurse and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, that the vaccines available for use in the United States were experimental and dangerous.“The hospital’s employees are not participants in a human trial,” Judge Hughes wrote. “Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the Covid-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients and their families safer.”The judge’s decision appeared to be among the first to rule in favor of employer-mandated vaccinations for workers. Several major hospital systems have begun to require Covid shots, including in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.But many private employers and the federal government have not instituted mandatory immunization as they shift operations back to office settings. Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance allowing employers to require vaccines for on-site workers.In Houston, Ms. Bridges was among those who led a walkout on Monday, the hospital’s deadline for getting the vaccine. And on Tuesday, the hospital suspended 178 employees who refused to get a coronavirus shot.Ms. Bridgescited the lack of full Food and Drug Administration approval for the shot as justification for refusing to get vaccinated. But the F.D.A., which has granted emergency use authorizations for three vaccines, says clinical trials and post-market study shows they are safe, as does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The judge also noted that Texas employment law only protects employees from termination for refusing to commit an act that carries criminal penalties.“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a Covid-19 vaccine, however if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else,” he said, also rejecting the argument that employees were being coerced.And the judge called “reprehensible” the lawsuit’s contention that a vaccination requirement was akin to medical experimentation during the Holocaust.In a statement late Saturday, Dr. Marc Boom, chief executive of Houston Methodist, said: “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”Houston Methodist said it would begin proceedings to terminate employees who were suspended if they did not get vaccinated by June 21.Jared Woodfill, the employee plaintiffs’ lawyer, also issued a statement on Saturday, according to news reports, that indicated the workers would appeal the ruling.

A Sage government adviser says we will have a substantial third wave, and opening up too soon would lead to an increase of infections.Professor Andrew Hayward told Andrew Marr: “If we were to open up more that will just really fan the flames, and lead to this increasing even faster”.He said a single dose of Covid-19 vaccine only reduces the risk of infection by about a third.

Deaglan McCallion is 10 years old and has Tourette’s Syndrome.He said: “When I was younger I noticed I was making a lot of noises and shouting out a bunch of words and thumping my chest.”I just want people to know that I’m not a bad child, I just have Tourette’s and can’t hold that back.”Tourette’s Syndrome is a neurological condition that can cause verbal and physical tics.There are no official diagnosis figures for Northern Ireland, but it is estimated that there are about 300,000 adults and children in the UK who live with the condition.Deaglan and his family live in Magherafelt, County Londonderry. His mother, Louise, believes there needs to be more awareness around her son’s condition.”People think it’s just saying swear words and things like that,” she said.”But Deaglan’s motor tics can be so severe that he is in constant pain and he begs us to make it stop and that’s very hard for us as a family.”The DADS/Empower project based in Magherafelt, which is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund to tackle the stigma around Tourette’s, provides support to families like Deaglan’s.Project manager Josie McGuckin said: “It can be a shock for parents after a diagnosis, so we’re bringing them together with other families who’ve had similar experiences with Tourette’s, so they can support each other.”Video journalist: Niall McCracken