Amid reports of the ongoing coal shortage in the country, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed that there is no shortage and termed these as "absolutely baseless", saying India is a power surplus country. Sitharaman said that Power Minister R K Singh went on record just two days ago when he said absolutely baseless information is floating around that there is probably shortage of coal, shortage of other inventories which will lead to a sudden gap in the supply demand situation in the energy consumption. "Absolute baseless! There is no shortage of anything. In fact, if I recall the minister's statement, every power producing installation has the next four days' stock absolutely available within their own premises and the supply chain has not broken at all," Sitharaman said at Harvard Kennedy School on Tuesday.
"The Indian Medical Association has requested all its 3.5 lakh members in 1,800 local branches to voluntarily come out to get vaccinated first to show the world that these vaccines are safe and efficacious," it said.
No decision on granting indemnity to any foreign or Indian Covid vaccine-manufactures has been taken yet, the government said Friday, underlining these decisions are to be taken 'in the interest of nation and people'.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories on Friday soft-launched imported COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, with Deepak Sapra, a senior executive of the drug-maker, taking the first shot in Hyderabad.
The COVID-19 active caseload remained below 4 lakh for the second consecutive day.
In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is deeply honoured to be a 'long-trusted' partner in meeting the healthcare needs of the global community and that supplies of the vaccines to several countries will commence on Wednesday, and more will follow in the days ahead.
Asked if the government has decided to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to the entire population free of cost on priority basis and if so, the target fixed to administer the doses, the health minister said according to Revised Guidelines for Implementation of National COVID Vaccination Program, which came into effect from June 21, all citizens aged 18 years and above, irrespective of their income status, are entitled to free vaccination at all government vaccination centres.
Cautioning that the country is passing through a phase when there are festivals and potential gatherings, he said this is a critical phase as the virus can spread again.
Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, has a licence to produce the shot and has already manufactured close to 50 million doses.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said the COVID-19 vaccination drive will be extended in the coming days and asserted that there should not be any misconceptions about the two Indian vaccines being administered in the country.
Kejriwal said COVID-19 vaccines should have one price and appealed to the Centre to bring down the price.
According to sources, around 10 crore doses of the Sputnik V vaccine is likely to be imported for emergency use in the country in the next six to seven months.
The second dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers from February 13, the Centre said on Thursday, highlighting that 45 per cent of them have been inoculated so far.
The Serum Institute of India has informed the Centre that it will be able to supply around 22 crore doses of Covishield in October as the Union government has announced resuming export of surplus Covid vaccines in the coming fourth quarter under the 'Vaccine Maitri' programme, official sources said.
Government institutions and pharma industry are examining if a 'cocktail' approach to making a multi-variant Covid-19 vaccine works against multiple strains of the ever-mutating virus, reports Sohini Das.
An important focus of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunisation.
The NTAGI has also stated that those having laboratory test proven SARS-CoV-2 illness should defer COVID-19 vaccination for six months after recovery, the sources said.
'Ideally, the efficacy data of all the trials should be there in the public domain, and as soon as possible.' 'It is difficult to understand the reason behind the authorisation.'
According to the sources, there are limited prospects of J&J exporting its vaccine from the US to other countries in the near future and the "entire production" at the BE facilities in India, beginning July/August, will be handed over to the pharma giant under a contract between the companies.
The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus.
Modi urged the country to show patience during the vaccination drive as it had shown till now in fighting the pandemic.
'The Indian Academy of Sciences, strongly believes that any hasty solution that may compromise rigorous scientific processes and standards will likely have long-term adverse impacts of unforeseen magnitude on citizens of India'
ICMR says it is following all globally accepted norms to fast-track vaccine and wants to 'cut red tape'.
Vardhan noted that COVID-19 infection among those vaccinated would be very mild and not progress to an advanced stage.
India has purchased 500 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, one billion from the United States company Novavax and 100 million doses of the Sputnik V candidate from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, according to the US-based Duke University Global Health Innovation Center.
Out of the 447 adverse events following immunisation, only 3 required hospitalisation.
As India launches the world's most ambitious and biggest vaccination drive against COVID-19, the country will encounter the formidable challenge of rapidly scaling up distribution of the vaccines to secure immunity for its entire population, two prominent Indian scientists at World Health Organisation have said.
The Indian Council of Medical Research will start national-level sero surveys to assess the spread of Covid-19 and all states/Union territories should also be encouraged to conduct them so that information from all geographies can be collected, the Union health ministry said on Friday.
Vaccinating 100-200 people in each session per day, monitoring them for 30 minutes after administering the shots for any adverse event and allowing only one beneficiary at a time are among the guidelines issued by the Centre for the COVID-19 inoculation drive.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has granted restricted emergency use authorisation to two new vaccines and a drug for COVID-19, taking the number of preventives and treatments available in India to 12.
In an address to the nation amid increasing Covid cases through the Omicron variant of the virus, he said the precaution dose will also be available for citizens above 60 years of age and with comorbidities on the advice of their doctor from January 10 next year as well.
Dr Rai, who is also a principal investigator of the Bharat Biotech Covaxin clinical trial at AIIMS, said that COVID-19 preventive measures like wearing masks, hand hygiene should be followed till there is an effective vaccine.
Sputnik V is the third vaccine India has given the go-ahead to after 'Covishield', developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and 'Covaxin', the indigenous vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech. Covishield is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
The first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for seven days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunisation programme within the country, the Union health ministry said.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
'Nobody is attacking the company or the vaccine.' 'The concerns are about the process and the lack of transparency.'
Unless public health is prioritised over swift re-opening, the chances are that a third wave will hit India sooner than we would like.
The PM-CARES fund, which has been set up to provide relief during the coronavirus pandemic, has contributed over Rs 2,200 crore for the first phase of vaccination drive, which is looking to inoculate frontline healthcare workers, the Expenditure Secretary said on Tuesday.
The COVID-19 vaccines can be "tweaked" to provide protection against new variants of the virus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said.
The first dry run of the vaccination drive took place across 125 districts covering all States/UTs on January 2. The dry run was also conducted to familiarise the state, district, block, and hospital-level officers on all aspects of the COVID-19 rollout.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances