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Highlights Drawbacks of chemical fertilizers have attracted the attention of farmers toward biofertilizers. Nitrogen fixer Azotobacter SR-4 and phosphorus solubilizer Asphergillus Niger were produced and observed to be efficient biofertilzers. A significant increase in yield parameters were observed when these biofertilizers were evaluated on Bottle gourd and okra. In conclusion, biofertilizers or microbial inoculants could be used as an alternate source, which are both cost-effective as well as eco-friendly.

Nanotechnology is the fabrication, characterization, and potential application of various materials at the nanoscale. Over the past few decades, nanomaterials have attracted researchers from different fields because of their high surface-to-volume ratio and other unique and remarkable properties. Cobalt and cobalt oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have various biomedical applications because of their distinctive antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal, anticancer, larvicidal, antileishmanial, anticholinergic, wound healing, and antidiabetic properties. In addition to biomedical applications, cobalt and cobalt oxide NPs have been widely used in lithium-ion batteries, pigments and dyes, electronic thin film, capacitors, gas sensors, heterogeneous catalysis, and for environmental remediation purposes. Different chemical and physical approaches have been used to synthesize cobalt and cobalt oxide NPs; however, these methods could be associated with eco-toxicity, cost-effectiveness, high energy, and time consumption. Recently, an eco-friendly, safe, easy, and simple method has been developed by researchers, which uses biotic resources such as plant extract, microorganisms, algae, and other biomolecules such as starch and gelatin. Such biogenic cobalt and cobalt oxide NPs offer more advantages over other physicochemically synthesized methods. In this review, we have summarized the recent literature for the understanding of green synthesis of cobalt and cobalt oxide NPs, their characterization, and various biomedical applications.

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted immunization programs around the globe, potentially increasing life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries, which are still struggling to eradicate wild poliovirus. All vaccination campaigns in Pakistan were suspended in April due to the COVID-19 outbreak, leading 40 million children to miss out on polio vaccination. Like the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic could be regarded as a child-rights crisis because it could have life-threatening impact over children, who need immunization, now and in the long-term. Delays in polio vaccination programs might not have immediate impact but, in the long-term, the increase in polio cases in Pakistan could result in the global export of infections. Therefore, healthcare authorities must intensify their efforts to track and vaccinate unvaccinated children in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Polio vaccination campaigns need to resume immediately, so we suggest applying social distancing measures along with standard operating procedure to flatten the transmission curve of COVID-19. Furthermore, the concurrent emergence of cVDPV2 means that tOPV should temporarily be used for primary immunization. In the current review, we have discussed delays in polio vaccination, surveillance of polio viruses, reported cases in Pakistan along with recommendations to overcome interrupted immunization.