The minister will review the COVID-19 situation at 11:30 am on Wednesday 'considering the international scenario', they said.
According to respective company sources, Biological E is holding 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax while Bharat Biotech is sitting on a stockpile of 50 million doses of Covaxin.
The Centre on Sunday held a high-level review meeting after a 34-year-old man from the national capital with no history of foreign travel tested positive for the monkeypox virus, making it the fourth case of the disease reported in India.
In a letter to states and UTs on Monday, Additional Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Arti Ahuja advised them to pay attention to this aspect immediately and increase the testing in a strategic manner keeping in view the trend of case positivity in specific areas.
While asserting that the CoWIN portal is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, it said an internal exercise has been initiated to review the existing security measures of CoWIN.
With the COVID-19 cases under subsidence in the country, the viral infection has risen significantly due to the emergence of a new virus for which the experts are continuously advising to take precautions.
There has been a nearly 150 per cent rise in patients coming to outpatient departments with such complaints, they said.
In a first of its kind, the Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR, delivered COVID-19 vaccines via drone from the Bishnupur District Hospital to Karang island in Loktak lake in Manipur, a distance of 26 kilometres.
Amid a spike in Covid-19 cases, the Centre on Monday reviewed with states and Union territories the preparedness for pandemic management and the progress of vaccination.
The article claimed that the "ICMR tailored its findings to fit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's optimistic narrative despite a looming crisis".
Phase-I clinical trials have revealed "excellent safety" of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd and their immunogenicity testing is now in progress, minister of state for health Ashwini Choubey informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
'We shot the song Zinda Banda for about six days.' 'We were dancing relentlessly for six days to a point when we thought our knees had started making sounds!' 'He was on set, every day, dancing next to us for all those six days.'
'Serial testing is much more valuable than a single test which reflects just a point in time.'
The minister said he was not supposed to say anything officially as he was still in touch with the union health ministry and the ICMR officials.
The National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 will collect systematic data on clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, the clinical course of COVID-19, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients.
The 'antisera' has been developed by the ICMR in collaboration with a Hyderabad-based bio-pharmaceutical firm. "With Biological E Limited we have developed an horse 'antisera' and we have just got clearance for conducting clinical trials for that," ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said at press briefing.
COVID-19 is on the verge of becoming endemic but Indian scientists are keeping a close watch on each new variant and the government would continue to maintain a high alert, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya has said, underlining that the virus has managed to survive and is going to stay.
The Indian Council of Medical Research's national task force for COVID-19 has decided against including antiviral drug Molnupiravir in the clinical management protocol for COVID-19 as of now, official sources said on Tuesday.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said nobody could imagine one would profiteer from the immeasurable suffering of millions, saying the 'scam was an insult to every Indian'.
Justice Najmi Waziri issued the direction to three private companies which had entered into an agreement to import 10 lakh test kits from China and distribute them here at a cost of Rs 600 each, the rate approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
'iNCOVACC' is priced at Rs 800 for private markets and at Rs 325 for supplies to the government of India and state governments.
Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 and 65.2 per cent protection against the new Delta variant.
Mandaviya reviewed the pandemic situation, status of vaccination drive and the global scenario of new variants of Covid.
The interim findings of the trial in which the four drugs were tested in 405 hospitals across 30 countries, covering 11,266 adults, were released on 'medRxiv', a preprint server, on Thursday. The findings are under review for publication in a medical journal.
The Centre and the states need to continue working in collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for COVID-19 prevention and management, Mandaviya said.
Responding to another question, Choubey said that the phase-I of clinical trials have revealed excellent safety of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd, and now their immunogenicity testing is in progress. Their phase II clinical trials are ongoing.
While Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh warned the yoga guru that the state government won't allow the sale of 'spurious' medicines, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma also said that the state government will not allow the sale of Patanjali's Ayurvedic formulation.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the lowering of rates for the tests would provide a relief to the people.
The durability of immunity post COVID-19 vaccination persists for nine months or more and a precautionary dose of vaccine which will be administered to healthcare and frontline workers and citizens above 60 years with comorbidities is to mitigate the severity of infection, hospitalisation and death, the government said on Thursday.
The move may trigger a confrontation between the AAP dispensation and the LG office.
India procured around 5 lakh rapid antibody test kits from the two Chinese firms, Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics, and they were distributed to several states reporting rising cases of the coronavirus infection.
The central drug regulator has issued show cause notices to these two importers and asked to stop the import of rapid test kits based on the observation by the apex health research body Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
'SII has started stockpiling the vaccine and now has roughly 40 million doses ready. It is using some of the capacities it had for under development products for the COVID-19 vaccine and by January we will have a capacity to make 100 million doses per month and a stockpile of 200 million doses.'
This may include Rs 1,500 as a screening test for suspect cases and an additional Rs 3,000 for confirmation test, the guidelines said.
Ganga Ram hospital Chairperson Dr D S Rana on Tuesday said that Remdesivir is also being considered to be dropped from COVID-19 treatment soon as there is no evidence of its effectiveness in treating COVID-19 patients.
'A probable positive patient walking into a centre is not an ideal situation.'
'India is too large a place to have just 10 labs performing these Covid-19 tests.'
'The lockdown was for both: To flatten the curve or more correctly, delay the rapid spread of COVID outbreak, and to create healthcare infrastructure.'
Findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research's fourth national Covid sero survey show there is a ray of hope, but there is no room for complacency and Covid-appropriate behaviour has to be followed, the government said.
The government is likely to soon reduce the gap between the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine and the precaution dose from the current nine months to six months, official sources said on Wednesday.
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