The 30-share BSE Sensex surged by 477.24 points or 0.83 per cent to close at more than one-week high of 57,897.48. As many as 28 of its constituents closed with gains while two declined. The broad-based Nifty of the National Stock Exchange rose by 147.20 points or 0.86 per cent to settle 17,233.45, tracking gains in Sun Pharma, Asian Paints, and Reliance Industries.
SII would be scaling up its AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine manufacturing capacity to 200 million doses a month from 100 million a month now, reports Sohini Das.
Experts, however, feel that given the intensity of the second wave and the high single dose coverage, India is in a good position to avoid any drastic wave in the near future.
India is not keen to 'bow down' to demands related to indemnity against legal liabilities in case any vaccine recipient develops severe adverse reactions post inoculation.
A second wave of Covid driven by the Delta variant engulfed the country in May-June bringing the health system to its knees and leaving people gasping for help.
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.
The foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of India, the US, Australia and Japan on Friday held extensive talks in Melbourne amid escalating tension between Russia and NATO countries over Ukraine, the Afghan crisis and increasing concerns over China's "coercion" in the Indo-Pacific region.
'Better to prevent than to wait for evidence. Protection delayed can also mean protection denied'
While Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is in trials among children already, Serum Institute of India will begin Novavax vaccine trials on children from July, whereas the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for adolescents in the United States; and Cadila Healthcare's ZyCoV-D has done trials on 12 year-olds and above already, reports Sohini Das.
By 2022, there is a plan to make an mRNA-technology vaccine, for which it has tied up with Canadian firm Providence Therapeutics.
'Between its natural immunity with Delta, in so many populations, and then getting on top of the vaccination (situation), I do not think India is going to have another bad wave.'
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