'If you think you think you're going to booster yourself out of the pandemic, in COVID-19's case, you can forget it.'
Pune's Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker by volume, is placing its bets on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate AZD1222 with CEO Adar Poonawalla stating he would start manufacturing at personal risk.
"Pregnancy doesn't increase the risk of acquiring SARS-COV-2 infection but appears to worsen the clinical course as compared to non-pregnant women'
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.
Vardhan noted that COVID-19 infection among those vaccinated would be very mild and not progress to an advanced stage.
'There is no emergency of a third wave that we are rushing for booster doses.'
These 51 cases were detected from over 45,000 samples sequenced so far in the country.
The Centre has written to states and Union Territories to immediately undertake necessary measures to include people aged 45 and above in the COVID-19 vaccination drive and stated that registration on the Co-WiN portal for the same would begin from April 1.
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.
Dr Mishra further explained the effect of hybrid immunity on the vaccinated population and said that it is likely to give protection to people along with the Indian vaccines administered.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant and throwdown specialist Dayanand Garani tested positive for COVID-19, while two others were placed in precautionary isolation as the dreaded virus hit the Indian cricket team ahead of next month's Test series against England.
The Padma Bhushan was conferred on 17 personalities including N Chandrasekharan, chairman of Tata Sons, Krishna and Suchita Ella of Bharat Biotech, Cyrus Poonawalla, Satya Nadella, chairman of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai, chairman of Google.
He also said that there were around 620 cases of black fungus or mucormycosis in the city, but there is a shortage of Amphotericin-B injections used in its treatment.
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.
Currently, the country is using two 'made-in India' jabs -- Covishield and Covaxin -- to inoculate its billion-plus population and has administered 20 crore doses since launching the world's largest vaccination drive in mid-January. A third vaccine, Russian-made Sputnik V, has been approved by the government and is being used on a smaller scale at present.
The raging controversy over the fake COVID-19 vaccination camps in parts of Kolkata snowballed into a political storm ensnaring into it several TMC leaders, prompting the opposition BJP to demand a CBI probe into a 'larger conspiracy' in the case.
Behind each Covid vaccine are hundreds of parents, who had the courage and conviction to come forth with their children for the trial of a vaccine which was, until then, untried in that age group, reports Sindhu Bhattacharya.
22 cases of the Delta Plus variant of the coronavirus have been detected in India, with 16 of them being reported from Maharashtra and the remaining from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, the government said.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said in its latest Yellow Card monitoring of the coronavirus vaccine programme this week that of the 18.1 million people who had the Oxford vaccine in the UK, 30 people developed blood clots and seven had died as of March 24.
Modi said India has taken an important step forward in protecting its youth population against the disease.
Several private hospitals across the country said they have no clarity on procuring COVID-19 vaccines under the new policy announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that it has led to the vaccination being put on hold at their centres.
The teams were from Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd Pune, Biological E Ltd Hyderabad and Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd Hyderabad.
'Almost 70 per cent production time of a vaccine is dedicated to quality control, which is done through several hundred tests.'
Some states have flagged the shortage of vaccines and expressed their inability to start vaccination of people above 18 years from Saturday
The WHO said that studies have highlighted that the spread of the second wave has been much faster than the first in India.
Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan sparred on Twitter on Saturday with the Opposition leader raising questions over the emergency use approval given to the indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin and the Bharatiya Janata Party leader hitting back alleging that Tewari was only passionate about spreading rumours.
First a scientist and then a businessman, founder chairman Krishna Ella quit his faculty position at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, United States, in 1996 to return to India.
From March 1, as many as 2,35,901 beneficiaries more than 45 years old with specific co-morbidities and 16,16,920 people aged more than 60 years have received anti-coronavirus vaccine dose, it stated.
'Opening everything is not appropriate ... everyone has been saying the third wave is a couple of days away'
Among the other names tipped to make it to the Cabinet are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Baijayant Panda.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
Interacting with state chief ministers, Modi underscored the enormity of what he described as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, which begins from January 16, saying over 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next few months in India against only 2.5 crore people vaccinated so far in over 50 countries in around a month.
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 country wide vaccination exercise is being exponentially expanded to include those above 60 years of age and those above 45 years with co-morbidities, from March 1.
Not to say that India couldn't have handled the situation better, but on average, it didn't do anywhere near as badly as the naysayers make it out argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
This apart, to further increase capacities, Bharat Biotech has partnered with Indian Immunologicals (IIL) to manufacture the drug substance for Covaxin. The technology transfer process is underway and IIL has the 'capabilities and expertise' to manufacture the inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale.
The costs of providing free vaccines are way lower than the costs of a freewheeling epidemic.
On Wednesday, the Maharashtra government had said that it would not be able to launch the 18-45 age group vaccination drive from May 1 due to the shortage of vaccines.
There are a number of trial sites across both Mumbai and Pune that we have shortlisted, as these cities have many hotspots, which will help us understand the efficacy of the vaccine, the company's chief executive Adar Poonawalla said.
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.
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