A prospective study to evaluate the factors associated with mortality of a multicentric cohort of hospitalized pediatric COVID-19 patients, from 42 centers across India was conducted by ICMR.

Only 68.6% of children were symptomatic at admission, with fever being the most common symptom. At least 1 comorbidity was present in 260 (21%) children. The in-hospital mortality rate was 6.2% (n = 67), with the highest among infants (12.5%). 

The study concluded that COVID-19 was milder in children than adults, and the pattern was consistent across all waves of the pandemic.

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Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is considering “Front of Pack Nutrition Label” (FOPNL) of pre-packaged processed foods based on recognizable symbols indicating energy, saturated fat, total sugar, sodium, and essential nutrients content per 100 g or 100ml of the food.

Based on a cross-sectional study across India reported by National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), where five formats for FOPNL were studied: Nutri-score (NS), Health Star Rating (HSR), Warning Labels (WL), Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL) and Nutri-star Rating (NSR).

Findings of the Study : For promoting healthier food choice summary indicators (NS or HSR) had a greater impact, and for discouraging moderately healthy foods warning labels (WL or NSR) worked better. 

This step if implemented will be an important public health communication tool for healthier food choice among the population.

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