Second Wave of COVID-19 in Pakistan: Our Responsibilities and Challenges as A Nation

The Corona virus (SARS-CoV2) pandemic initiated in late December 2019 in Wuhan city of Hubei, China, which has rapidly progressedinvolving more than 215 countries of the world. It was caused by novel SARS-COV2 coronavirus with Huanan seafood wholesale market as the possible point of origin. In past two decades, coronaviruses epidemic of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-COV) had 37% mortality rate and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-COV) had 10% affecting more than 10,000 population together. World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as the sixth Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020 and later on March 11, 2020, the WHO labeledit as a pandemic. The first case of COVID-19 from Pakistan was reported on 26th February, 2020 and has affected over 354,000 people with a mortality of over 7000 patients. Many countries of the world have seen second wave of this pandemic. Government ofPakistan has also declared a second waveon October 28, 2020, after the rise in cases from 500 to 750 per day. Now it has crossed 2000 cases. The data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) shows that the current percent positivity rate is close to 3 compared to the previous figure of lesser than 2 making it a bigger challenge than first wave in Pakistan. The patients now presenting in hospitals are all in critical condition. Lack of a specific vaccine or antiviral drug and non-compliance to the standard preventive measures is the major reason of initiation of a second wave of this viral infection in Pakistan. Being a nation we need to be responsible. Our country may go into economic crisis & our health facilities may choke. We have to understand how to live with this virus till the availability of vaccine or Curative antiviral drug. TheGovernment of Pakistan is creating awareness in the public for the second wave as the situation of pandemic is getting worse. Smart lock downs are being implementedbut people are not following preventive measures that are leading to infection spread at a very alarming speed. At the moment preventive measures are the only way to stop the spread of disease. Preventive measures should be adopted to contain this deadly disease. Wearing masks, using hand sanitizers, washing hands with soap for 20 sec, keeping social distance of 6 feet are mandatory preventive strategies. Social, political, business, recreationaland religious gatherings, should be avoided. Educational institutesshould follow strict standard operating procedures. Most of the people in Pakistan are not considering this disease as a matter of serious concern due to unawareness, poverty, beliefs and lack of resources. People should ignore such disbeliefs and should start considering it as a great health concern. They should follow the preventive measures in true sense.

Exploration and Utlization of Promoters from Dicot Plats

The highly expressed promoters used in genetic engineering have been isolated from viruses. The commercially available promoters have been patented and the scientists have to address the Intellectual Property Rights issues related to patented promoters. The exploration of strong dicot promoters is needed for the expression of transgenes by our local researchers for the evaluation of their transgenes. The dicot promoters (β-TbBr promoter, β-TbSt promoter and susy-Sl promoter) were explored and isolated from potato, turnip and tomato respectively. The promoter sequences and their deletion mutants consist of various motifs for light response, hormonal response and stress response. Maximum light responsive motifs were detected in β-TbSt and susy-Sl promoters. The full length β-TbSt and susy-Sl promoters were expressed in tobacco and cotton tissues through transient assay and their expression was maximum in major tissues of these selected dicot plants. The strong β-Glucoronidase (GUS) expression was observed in roots, stem, leaves, flowers, trichomes and siliques of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana under the β-TbSt and susy-Sl promoters. The full length β-TbBr promoter also expressed GUS gene in various tissues of tobacco and cotton through transient assay but the deletion mutants of this promoter were expressed only in anthers of transgenic lines of Arabidopsis. The deletion mutants of susy-Sl promoter showed strong constitutive GUS expression in roots, stems, leaves, flowers, trichomes and siliques of transgenic A.thaliana tissues.The smallest deletion mutant (679bp) of susy-Sl promoter showed optimal promoter activity in transgenic A. thaliana. The deletion mutants of β-TbSt promoter also expressed GUS gene in major tissues of A. thaliana but the expression was not good in roots due to removal of some of the root specific motifs and light inducible motifs. The β-TbBr promoter showed flower specific expression in A. thaliana. The β-TbSt promoter and susy-Sl promoter were found highly constitutive while the full length β-TbBr promoter can be utilized for the expression of salt inducible genes under stress conditions and the deletions of this promoter can be utilized for the floral specific expression of transgenes in plant genetic engineering.