Sanchita Sharma
Sanchita is the health & science editor of the Hindustan Times. She has been reporting and writing on public health policy, health and nutrition for close to two decades. She is an International Reporting Project fellow from Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and was part of the expert group that drafted the Press Council of India’s media guidelines on health reporting, including reporting on people living with HIV.
Articles by Sanchita Sharma
A decade after defeating polio, India is set to begin its battle against Covid
UPDATED ON JAN 11, 2021 11:54 AM IST
With two approved vaccines – Serum Institute of India’s Covishield, and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin -- India is kickstarting the world’s biggest Covid-19 vaccination drive with an aim to inoculate 300 million people at most risk of infection and death by August.
Experts flag concern over ‘limited data’ for Covaxin
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON JAN 04, 2021 02:41 AM IST
Early-stage trials found the vaccine to be safe and able to invoke a robust immune response, but Phase 2 data is under peer review and has not been published. Phase 3 trials were announced on November 16, and around 22,500 of 25,800 volunteers have enrolled of which around half have received two doses.
Amplifying reach, fake science biggest challenges to vaccination
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON JAN 03, 2021 08:50 AM IST
With fake science spreading within minutes on social media, the Central and state governments and public health professionals have the additional task of debunking emotionally-charged rumours.
Why masks will stay even after Covid-19 vaccination
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times
UPDATED ON DEC 29, 2020 04:30 AM IST
India plans to begin vaccinating 300 million health workers, frontline workers and vulnerable populations as early as January next year, but vaccines do not signal the end of public health precautions for the vaccinated.
Price cap on Covid tests could be affecting diagnosis, skewing data
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 24, 2020 05:00 AM IST
The ORF-1a, RdRp, E, N, and S genes are most frequently targeted for Sars-CoV-2 detection by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing, which is the standard test for Covid-19 diagnosis in India. The test that can successfully identify the variant is a three-gene test, where one of the genes doesn’t show up in the result because of a mutation in the virus.
Eight promising Covid-19 vaccines end year in hope
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 21, 2020 04:47 AM IST
The year began with Wuhan health officials reporting a mysterious cluster of pneumonia cases in 27 people to WHO on 31 December 2019, which was followed by scientists in China isolating the new coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) on January 7, and sharing the its genetic sequence on January 11.
Covid-19 can have impact on heart too, say experts
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 15, 2020 02:30 AM IST
A US study using MRI found cardiac abnormalities in 78 of 100 patients who had recently recovered from Covid-19, including 12 of 18 asymptomatic patients.
Few Covid-19 deaths in India’s old-age homes, survey finds
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 14, 2020 04:48 AM IST
Globally, age is one of the strongest predictors of the risk of death from Covid-19, which hits older adults the hardest even though the majority of cases are in people younger than 65 years.
Central schemes help country fare better on wellness index: Survey
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 13, 2020 05:47 AM IST
Women are more empowered than they were in 2015-16, with all states recording a marked increase in the number of women with a bank or savings account that they use.
Covid-19 may set back progress made in eradicating malaria
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 07, 2020 02:51 AM IST
Covid-19 deaths crossed 1.5 million worldwide on December 3, which is close to four times the 411,000 malaria deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Malaria Report 2020 released on November 30.
Scientists reset biological clock to restore vision in old mice
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON DEC 03, 2020 04:36 PM IST
If affirmed through further studies, these findings could be transformative for the care of age-related vision diseases like glaucoma and to the fields of biology and medical therapeutics for disease at large
Covid has left students with uncertain future
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 30, 2020 04:57 AM IST
Among migrants, 91% of households reported loss of income and 60% households reported they had no money to pay for food, which led to insecurity and domestic violence.
India to manufacture 100mn doses a year of Sputnik: Moscow institute
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi, New Delhi
PUBLISHED ON NOV 28, 2020 07:24 AM IST
Phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine are approved and ongoing in Belarus, the UAE, Venezuela and other countries, and Phase 2/3 have been approved in India. India, along with Brazil, China, South Korea and others, will provide the vaccine to at least 50 countries that have requested over 1.2 billion doses.
Covid-19: Beginning 2021, India to produce 100 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 27, 2020 12:54 PM IST
Sputnik V is based on a well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors and has demonstrated a 91.4% efficacy rate
Russia says vaccine 95% effective, roll-out in Jan
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi, New Delhi:
UPDATED ON NOV 25, 2020 06:42 PM IST
Countries are hoping to begin inoculating their populations by year’s end or in early 2021 to stop a pandemic that has claimed the lives of nearly 1.4 million people.
Over half of 20-year-olds in urban India likely to develop diabetes in their lifetime: Study
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 24, 2020 04:30 PM IST
Those who were free of diabetes at age 60 were at lower risk, with around 38% of women and 28% of men developing diabetes at a later age, found the study that used data from Delhi and Chennai
As vaccine trials end, where do Covid-19 treatments stand?
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 24, 2020 05:35 AM IST
Most Covid-19 treatments fall under three broad categories, antivirals that prevent the virus from multiplying, immune-modulators that regulate the immune response, and combinations that use multiple mechanisms of action.
Air pollution as severe in villages as in urban India, reveals study
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 04, 2020 08:32 AM IST
The new study, part-funded by NASA, combined satellite data with modelling to estimate levels of small particulate matter that damage health and lead to early death
Vaccinationalism will prolong pandemic: Andrea D. Taylor of Global Health Innovation Center
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 02, 2020 08:23 AM IST
Some countries will be able to vaccinate their entire populations — and some many times over— while denying low-resource regions such as sub-Saharan Africa access to Covid-19 protection until 2024
Covid-19: Public participation a must to contain infection spread
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 02, 2020 05:03 AM IST
India’s case fatality rate — the percentage of deaths in an infected population — has steadily declined from a high of 3.23% on March 22 to 1.49% on October 31.
Global study sees India having edge in Covid-19 vaccines
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON NOV 02, 2020 09:26 AM IST
It will likely take three to four years to manufacture enough vaccines to cover the world’s population, but high-income countries and a few middle-income countries with manufacturing capacity such as India, have already purchased nearly 3.8 bn doses.
Recovered from Covid? Get flu shot to keep pollution impact at bay: Experts
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON OCT 26, 2020 03:21 AM IST
Air pollution is known to raise susceptibility, hospitalisations and risk of death of Covid-19 patients, and clinicians warn that it may also exacerbate symptoms of “long Covid”, which is a term used to describe symptoms of Covid-19 persisting weeks and months after recovery.
Melinda Gates: ‘Life will change forever… we will build back in a better way’
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON OCT 21, 2020 05:07 PM IST
The co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spoke about innovation, livelihoods, and how coronavirus disease will change the world
Learnings from polio on how to vaccinate 50 million
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON OCT 19, 2020 01:58 AM IST
Most of the potential Covid-19 vaccines will have to be given in two doses to offer protection against infection or reduction in disease severity, which would mean that 400-500 million jabs of the vaccine will have to be given within six months. Is this possible?
Covid detection with CRISPR, phones in offing
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times
UPDATED ON OCT 11, 2020 05:35 AM IST
This new CRISPR diagnostic method doesn’t amplify coronavirus RNA but uses multiple guide RNAs that work in tandem to increase the sensitivity of the test, said the research team in the yet to be peer-reviewed study published in the pre-print server medRxiv.
Hepatitis C discovery earns trio Nobel Prize for Medicine
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON OCT 06, 2020 06:31 AM IST
Two Americans and a Briton won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday for identifying the Hepatitis C virus, in work spanning decades that has helped to limit the spread of the fatal disease and develop antiviral drugs to cure it.
Healthwise: Study casts more doubt on HCQ’s effectiveness on Covid-19
UPDATED ON OCT 04, 2020 04:05 AM IST
Researchers from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in the US, Spain’s Universidad De Malaga and the Ministry of Health, however, found HCQ did protect against Sars-CoV-2 infection.
Stopping a Covid-19 generation of stunted children essential
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON SEP 27, 2020 03:36 AM IST
With 50 million children remaining stunted (low height for age), India still accounts for a third of the global burden of childhood stunting.
Genetic defects may affect ability to fight Covid-19
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON SEP 26, 2020 01:32 AM IST
Lab studies confirmed the antibodies destroyed the interferon and cells exposed to the patients’ plasma failed to stop infection by Sars-CoV2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
Herd immunity unviable, Covid-19 vaccine the only solution
By Sanchita Sharma | Hindustan Times, New Delhi
UPDATED ON SEP 20, 2020 04:55 AM IST
Herd immunity is used to describe the indirect protection conferred to a population in which the majority of people have natural or acquired immunity to an infection. This is possible either through a large proportion of the population getting infected or vaccinated.