Good news for Britain, its health regulator on Friday has approved Moderna's MRNA.O vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus in adults over 60 years of age. The shot, also known as the mRESVIA is used for preventing the lower respiratory tract disease in older adults. As per the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), RSV is a common virus that spreads easily and could cause infections, which may be mild, cold-like, but can also result into more serious problems like lung infections or even pneumonia.

What is RSV?

As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is a common respiratory disease that infects your nose, throat and lungs and can often make it difficult to distinguish between a common cold or other respiratory viruses like the flu or even COVID-19. It mostly spreads during the fall and winter season and peaks around December and January.

Who Are More At Risk?

The youngest and the oldest population are the most vulnerable to this disease. It usually does not cause any severe illness in healthy adults or children, however, people with RSV, who are older or are infants, which means younger than 6 months of age, could become very sick. They may be need to be hospitalized.

It can also cause other severe illnesses like bronchiolitis, which is the inflammation of the small airways in the lungs, and even pneumonia, which is an infection of the lungs. It is most common cause of these two diseases in children who are younger than 1 year of age.

What Helps When A Person Has RSV?

In most cases, a person may require:

Additional oxygen

IV fluids, in case the person is unable to drink to stay hydrated

Intubation, which is a breathing tube inserted through mouth and down the airway with mechanical ventilation

RSV In Older Population

Why the vaccination for older people important? It is because what seems like a small respiratory issue could be dangerous for older people. In the US alone, each year, 100,000-150,000 adults ages 60 get hospitalized due to RSV, notes the CDC. Adults are thus at the highest risk for severe RSV, thus the UK approval for the vaccination is welcomed warmly.

Another reason why it affects older population more severely, because of their age and by then the body either starts shutting down or their functions slow down. Also, many adults may have comorbidities or other underlying health issues like a chronic heart or lung disease, weakened immune system, or are living with underlying medical conditions or are living in nursing homes. In such adults, RSV can sometimes lead to conditions like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or the COPD, which is a chronic disease of the lungs that makes it hard to breathe, and heart failure, because the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen through the body.

Who Should Get The Vaccine?

As per the National Health Service (NHS) UK, if you are pregnant, you must get vaccinated, from the 28th week onwards to help protect your baby after they are born. Also, if you aged between 75 to 79, you must too get vaccinated. However, the new vaccine allows the elderly population under the bracket of 65 to be vaccinated too.

At just 14 years old, Siddharth Nandyala is already changing the face of modern medicine. A native of Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh in India, living in Frisco, Texas, this young genius is causing global waves with the development of CircadiaV, a revolutionary AI-powered mobile app that can diagnose heart disease within a record seven seconds. With nothing more than a smartphone and sophisticated machine learning, Siddharth's invention has the potential to transform cardiovascular disease screening—one of the globe's top causes of death.

With certification from international tech giants such as Oracle and ARM, Siddharth is officially the world's youngest AI-certified professional but behind the titles and accolades, it's his vision for affordable, early healthcare interventions that really sets him apart. While most teenagers are at the age playing around with social media and video games, Siddharth is addressing medical challenges on a global scale.

Heart disease remains the primary cause of death in the world, resulting in more than 17.9 million deaths annually, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). A significant portion of those deaths are avoidable if diagnosed early enough. Unfortunately, the absence of medical diagnostic infrastructure in remote and underprivileged regions—particularly in developing nations—is an enormous challenge.

How CircadiaV Works?

What sets CircadiaV apart is its non-invasive, fast, and precise method for early detection of heart disease. The app can capture heart sounds by holding a smartphone against a patient's chest. It removes ambient noise, analyzes the audio data through a cloud-based machine learning model, and provides results in seven seconds.

The program can identify various cardiac anomalies, such as:

• Arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats)
• Early indications of heart failure
• Indicators of coronary artery disease
• Abnormalities in the heart valves

And it's amazingly precise—with a detection accuracy of more than 96%, as confirmed through testing on over 15,000 patients in America and another 700 in India, including at the Guntur Government General Hospital (GGH).

This application does not substitute for the EKG but is used as a quick, scalable pre-screen," Siddharth said to the Smithsonian Magazine. That clarification is important—it is not intended for consumer use at home or consumer diagnostics, but is designed to assist medical personnel, especially in impoverished environments where full cardiac diagnostics might not be within reach.

That is where CircadiaV comes in. Its low-cost, cloud-based, and portable nature makes it a perfect device for community clinics and frontline health workers. The application can be utilized in rural areas to give an early diagnosis, leading to early referrals and possibly cutting long-term morbidity and mortality.

An initial potential diagnosis in patients otherwise unlikely to have had access to medical treatment may in the end save long-term morbidity and mortality from this disease.

That is, this app could literally be a lifesaver—particularly for patients in rural towns, refugee camps, or even wartime zones where cardiologists and expensive diagnostic technology are scarce.

More Than Just a One-Time Invention

Siddharth's foray into innovation had not begun with CircadiaV. Prior to this, he had created a low-cost prosthetic arm, a innovation to enhance mobility for individuals with limb loss in underprivileged communities. He also had started STEM IT, a company that creates science and technology kits for children, enabling experiential STEM learning across socioeconomic barriers.

His success has already seen him receive national and international acclaim, including a Certificate of Recognition from the US House of Representatives and a congratulatory letter from President Joe Biden.

And although he is as old as some of his classmates are young, Siddharth has just become a computer science major at the University of Texas. And his goals don't end there. He hopes to make CircadiaV capable of not just detecting lung diseases like pneumonia and pulmonary embolism, but also of analyzing recordings of lung sounds just like the app presently analyzes heart sound recordings.

Clinically, prompt detection is the key to success with cardiovascular treatment. Most terminal cardiac illnesses—such as congestive heart failure or severe coronary artery disease—are salvageable if detected early. But when symptoms intensify, choices narrow, and survival rates plummet.

By providing healthcare professionals with an advantage with CircadiaV, Siddharth is delivering:

• Earlier detection = quicker decision-making on treatment
• Non-invasive screening guarantees greater uptake in community-based screening
• Cloud-fueled insights enable real-time collaboration among rural clinics and urban hospitals

Consider the following: a community health worker in a remote village in India uses a smartphone to identify early-stage heart failure in a 55-year-old man. Rather than waiting weeks for a cardiology visit, that patient can be expedited for further testing and treatment—saving his life.

The app is particularly useful for terminal heart patients whose survival chances raise significantly if the condition is detected at the asymptomatic or initial phases. With correct warnings regarding the development of arrhythmias or valve malfunctions, the technology enables physicians to act before it is too late.

India's Covid-19 trajectory has taken a sharp upward turn since the end of May, sparking fears of a potential new wave of infections. The active Covid-19 cases rose to 6,815 as of June 11—considerably higher than only 257 cases on May 22—according to the Union Ministry of Health dashboard.

Over the last 24 hours alone, the nation logged 324 fresh cases, accompanied by 783 recoveries and three new virus-linked deaths. This increase, while not yet a major outbreak by any means, indicates a change that will be monitored—specifically because states such as Kerala, Gujarat, and Karnataka are registering a steady rise.

Public health agencies have cautioned that although the severity of infections as a whole is still under control because of high inoculation levels and hybrid immunity, susceptible groups, particularly the elderly and those who suffer from co-morbidities, are still under substantial risk of developing complications or dying.

Three further Covid-related deaths were reported on June 10, taking India's death toll in 2025 to 68. These comprised:

A 90-year-old female in Delhi with co-morbidities such as Congestive Heart Failure (CCF), Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), and respiratory acidosis.

A 79-year-old male in Kerala, who was controlling Type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases.

A 44-year-old male in Jharkhand, who had severe multiple conditions such as aspirational pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), septic shock, hypertension, and hypothyroidism.

These examples highlight a stern reality: even with advances in medical interventions, Covid-19 is risky—particularly for individuals with compromised immune systems or existing health issues.

Kerala has the highest active caseload currently, with 2,053 active infections and 96 fresh cases in the past 24 hours. Even with its strong healthcare setup and high awareness rate, the state continues to fight against the virus due to its ageing population and lifestyle disease prevalence.

Gujarat is next, with 1,109 active cases, with Surat alone having 166. Karnataka, which logged 136 new cases in 24 hours, is another hotbed, reporting two deaths in the past 24 hours.

Incidentally, Delhi, having reported one death, registered a drop in active cases—691 now. Experts attribute this to timely public health interventions and increasing immunity in cities.

Why Are Hospital Admissions Being Led by High-Risk Patients?

Although the majority of new infections have been asymptomatic or mild, hospitalizations are disproportionately accounted for by high-risk groups, such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.

Recent fatalities in Delhi and Jharkhand included patients who were either old or had concurrent chronic diseases. According to medical professionals, these patients have lesser ability to develop an adequate immune response, and therefore they are prone to develop complications such as sepsis, respiratory failure, or multi-organ dysfunction if they contract Covid-19.

To an international audience, India's current Covid-19 data are not mere figures—what they show is a dynamic, living picture of how the pandemic is being addressed in one of the world's most populated countries.

The rebound is a warning for other nations that have reduced Covid-19 monitoring. The combination of declining immunity, viral evolution, and underreporting may easily spur new waves in other parts of the world, particularly as travel expands and public complacency deepens.

India's widespread Covid-19 surveillance system presents early notice of the potential for new variants and geographic trends. A spike here may, in the past, herald a ripple effect worldwide—as was the case with previous waves.

Why Are Individuals with Co-Morbidities Experiencing the Worst Outcomes?

The link between co-morbidities and worse Covid-19 outcomes has been clear from the beginning of the pandemic. Diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, kidney issues, obesity, and weakened immune systems severely limit the body's capacity to resist infection. Here's why:

Impaired Immune Function: Chronic diseases weaken the immune system's capability to detect and fight new infections efficiently.

Elevated Inflammatory Biomarkers: Underlying diseases tend to raise baseline levels of inflammation within the body, which in the event of a Covid-19 infection can spiral out of control into cytokine storms and serious systemic complications.

Delayed Hospitalization or Diagnosis: Most at-risk patients avoid care because of overlapping symptoms or ignorance, resulting in late disease at presentation.

Drug Interactions and Treatment Limits: Many patients with chronic diseases are already on medication regimens that can complicate Covid treatment, limiting options for antiviral therapies or supportive interventions.

The elderly and those with multiple diseases often experience rapid progression from mild symptoms to severe respiratory distress or organ failure. Vigilant monitoring and early intervention are critical in such cases.

Is a New COVID-19 Wave Here?

While India is witnessing a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases—jumping from just 257 active cases on May 22 to nearly 7,000 by June 11—experts are cautious about declaring it a full-blown new wave. The current surge appears localized, with states like Kerala, Gujarat, and Karnataka leading the spike. Most cases remain mild, and hospitalizations are limited to high-risk individuals with co-morbidities. Health officials are tracking for emerging variants closely but have not yet spotted any concerning mutations. Although it is not a new wave, the trend points to calls for increased vigilance, in particular for the elderly and the immunocompromised.

Indian health officials are calling for continued wearing of masks in risk areas, booster doses of vaccination, and early reporting of symptoms—particularly among vulnerable groups.

A few state health departments are stepping up genome sequencing and contact tracing in order to eliminate the possibility of any new sub-variants that could be fuelling this upsurge. There is no official confirmation on a new variant yet, but researchers are keeping a lookout.

The Union Health Ministry is also urging enhanced hospital readiness, reconsidering oxygen and ventilator inventories, and releasing advisories to local governments to stay vigilant.

The mpox outbreak continues to be a public health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday. The agency’s director-general also issued an updated set of temporary recommendations.

WHO had first declared the emergency in August last year, after a new strain of mpox spread from the severely affected Democratic Republic of Congo to nearby countries.

A public health emergency of international concern remains WHO’s highest level of alert.

What Is Mpox?

Mpox or monkey-pox is a viral disease in Africa. This was discovered by captive monkeys in 1958, after whom the disease was named in 1970. However, the name was later changed as it attracted many racist comments, especially on social media, where people wrote “the disease of monkeys” and associated it with the African people.

However, under the WHO guidelines, the naming of diseases must not drive any unnecessary negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid offending any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups. Thus, the name monkey-pox became the ‘m-pox’.

The outbreak led to WHO to declare an international public health emergency (PHEIC), from July 2022 to May 2023 in Congo. Now a new strain of the m-pox is infecting people in Kenya and poses a threat to many other African countries, including Congo.

How to detect it?

There are signs and symptoms of M-pox. They start to show within seven to 14 days of being infected. Therefore, for about a week a person may not know they have m-pox, and they can spread it by travelling.

The earliest signs are getting a fever, sweating and having chills through your body.

Other signs involve rashes, which start from a distant rash on the face and spread throughout the body. These rashes can be in different forms, sometimes a flat lesion, bumps, boils or scabs.

Other symptoms include swollen lymph nodes, migraine, muscle aches, fatigue, weakness and back pain.

How to prevent it?

This is a contagious infection and can spread by skin-to-skin contact. There are certain ways to prevent the spread. The first one is restricting your movement. Avoid going out in public, meeting people and interacting with animals.

Wear clothes that will prevent skin-to-skin infections. Cover yourself well so you do not spread the infection from your skin to other people.

Though there is no vaccination for the disease, doctors have noted that smallpox vaccination works on it to some extent.

Other ways are to keep hydrating yourself to get rid of the toxins from your body.

Doctors also prescribe medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen to treat the pain and fever one may experience after being infected. Antiviral treatment like tecovirimat has been said to work on the infection too.