While the infection has been mild in most reported cases, those below two years of age are showing signs of acute infection.
Adar Poonawalla says it took a five-minute chat with his father Cyrus before making the decision to manufacture Covishield. The bet paid off, and handsomely. Serum Institute now has the capacity to make 4 billion doses of Covishield annually.
'There is definitely a skill war, or a talent war going on.'
The company had in December said that the CDSCO had approved a 12-month shelf life for Covaxin, which was nine months earlier, Sohini Das reports.
A back of the envelope calculation shows that India has roughly over 680 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines consisting primarily of Covishield doses.
Serum Institute has the capacity to make 250 million doses of Covishield monthly.
Bharat Biotech is targeting to manufacture one billion doses of its intra-nasal vaccine in 2022 which is under clinical trials now.
'Antibodies remain in the blood for at least seven to nine months.'
'Someone may have diabetes, but at what level the disease qualifies as a comorbid condition is something a doctor will decide upon and certify accordingly.'
If the vaccine is recommended for use as a booster against Omicron, it may significantly boost the demand for Covishield in India.
The government is looking at a time frame within the first two weeks of July to kick off and complete the upcoming 5G auctions, according to discussions between officials and stakeholders. It is expected that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will give its recommendations on the base price by March, after which the necessary cabinet clearances will be given. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had earlier looked at undertaking the auction in the first quarter of 2022 but decided to push it back. Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had also said that the auctions are likely to take place in April-May.
'Last year we sold 18 million phones in India, this year we should do 23-24 million, and next year our target is to hit 40 million.'
With the spectrum auction now delayed till at least next May, the expected 5G orders for telecom equipment have not been sealed, the companies point out. Surajeet Das Gupta reports.
Of the amount, the home-grown private equity player founded by Renuka Ramnath plans to deploy $8 billion in various companies as part of its blueprint for growth.
Mobile device maker Realme has overtaken South Korean giant Samsung to grab the second spot in the branded smartphone market, with 18 per cent volume share in October this year, revealed Counterpoint Research. Its rival Samsung ended October with 16 per cent share. Xiaomi (including its brand POCO) was at 20 per cent; Vivo at 13 per cent. The ascent brings Realme closer to its ambition to reach the No. 1 berth by 2022 when it hopes to sell over 40 million smartphones annually.
'Should we shortchange our investors by exiting early?'
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
The share of total health expenditure as part of the gross domestic product (GDP) went down to 3.3 per cent in 2017-18 from 3.8 per cent in the previous two years, according to the national health account data released on Monday by the health ministry. The share of government expenditure as part of total expenditure as well as GDP has gone up from from 3.78 per cent to 5.12 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18, which could also explain a decline seen in out of pocket expenditure in 2017-18. Health ministry also emphasised the increase in the government health expenditure as part of the total GDP from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.35 per cent in 2017-18.
After ramping up production to meet the steep demand spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, Indian medical device makers are now struggling with idle capacity. According to industry estimates, around a third of the installed capacity, especially for consumables, disposables, small-ticket electronic items, etc., is lying unutilised. Sample this: India used to produce just 6.24 million pieces of PPE kits per annum before the pandemic, but by June this was ramped up to 233.87 million pieces per annum.
'Antiviral treatment will have no change. Spike protein change may affect the immunity protection.'
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