The ministry said this will also ensure early detection, isolation and hospitalisation of such "false" negative cases. It has also been reiterated in the joint letter that while the RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests, the ministry said.
The Ministry of Science and Technology has approached about a dozen well-known scientists from across the world in an effort to bring them back to various departments under the ministry, said Jitendra Singh, minister of state (independent charge) for science and technology.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav reacted quickly to the allegation, tweeting that the red caps are a 'red alert' for the Bharatiya Janata Party itself as they will oust that party from power.
Above-normal heatwave days are predicted in most parts of central, east and northwest India during this period.
The further expansion and upgrade of the Chinese military does not augur well for India, which continues to confront an increasingly belligerent China on its borders, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Dr Shreekant Sambrani pays tribute to M S Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and a lifelong crusader against hunger who passed away in Chennai recently.
Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at the ICMR Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said the apex health research body will begin a study on the effectiveness of the vaccine against coronavirus infection next week.
On when vaccination for children could start as Zydus Cadila's Covid vaccine has been granted emergency use authorisation for those 12-year-old and above, he said children were not being inoculated against COVID-19 on a large scale anywhere in the world though it has been initiated in some countries in a limited manner.
'Even if Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech were successful in ramping up production overnight, what happens to the capacity after the demand from India is met?' asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
The country saw a reduction in the number of swine flu cases due to masks and sanitation practices.
The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has recommended the environmental release of the genetically modified (GM) mustard variety DMH (Dhara Mustard Hybrid)-11, paving the way for the commercialisation of the country's first GM food crop. The GEAC said the recommendation was valid for four years from the date the approval letter was issued. Further studies and coordinated trials will have to be conducted jointly with the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) within two years, according to the minutes of the GEAC meeting held on October 18, which was released on Wednesday.
Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal claimed that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.
The long-pending proposals were cleared at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), the defence ministry's highest decision making body on procurement.
The joint secretary also said a high-level task force to work on frontiers of science related to vaccines and drug testing was formed on Sunday.
The phase-three human clinical trial of indigenously developed anti-coronavirus vaccine candidate Covaxin began at the AIIMS in New Delhi on Thursday, with Dr M V Padma Srivastava, the chief of Neurosciences Centre at the premier institute, and three other volunteers receiving the first dose.
In its daily briefing, the government also reported Goa is now free of coronavirus.
'The corruption charges in FCI are not the first and won't be the last.'
Poonawalla, during an interaction with Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik through a video conference, expressed optimism that the COVID-19 vaccine could be ready by October-November this year and the next phase of the trial can start in mid-August in India. According to a press note released by the CMO, Poonawalla has informed that the Oxford University vaccine has shown promising results in the first phase trial.
'Forcing the development of an indigenous vaccine as a cure for COVID-19, bypassing all health & safety norms, to be announced by PM Modi on Independence Day is fraught with horrendous human costs'
The budgetary allocation for the sector is Rs 60,908.22 crore, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).
Anil Vij was administered the trial dose of the indigenous COVID vaccine Covaxin last month
The ICMR said people having symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose and residing in hotspots or cluster areas and in evacuee centres will now be tested for coronavirus infection.
The Centre has started the process of identifying around 30 crore priority beneficiaries who will be given vaccine in the initial phase. The Centre will procure the vaccine directly and make it available free-of-cost for the priority beneficiaries.
Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise 'unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day'.
They have named this unique cluster of virus population as 'Clade A3i' found in 41 per cent of the genome sequenced in India.
'I would say it is not going to be days and weeks. It is going to be months and years, over which we would make an assessment on the decisions taken by the Parliament at this point of time. 'We are in for a long haul is what I would say.' It was a very diverse India, which was coming together, politically, in a very cohesive, democratically-resilient way." Professor Navnita Behera examines the wisdom of the exit of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
He also said that although India got independence much before Goa became free, people of the country could not enjoy at that time as they felt uneasy thinking that one part was the country was still under foreign rule.
Where do the four members of the Supreme Court appointed panel to interface with farmers stand on the Modi government's farm laws?
The World Bank's executive board unanimously selected 63-year-old Malpass, who is currently Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, as the bank's 13th President for a five-year term beginning April 9.
The vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, showed a "strong immune response" in animal studies, and the antibodies produced were able to completely neutralise the wild type virus, Zydus said. The 12 institutes have been asked by the ICMR to fast track clinical trials of the vaccine as it is being considered as one of the top priority projects which are being monitored at the topmost level of the government.
Chief Minister MK Stalin has shown that he is cut from a different cloth when it comes to embracing what is current, modern and absolutely necessary. Thus, even while retaining the spirit and content of the pan-Tamil, Dravidian socio-political and socio-economic ideology to the 't', his government has also acknowledged the need to accepting scientifically-proven facts in operational matters, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
India's IPR framework and enforcement were comparable to those in developed countries
The CoWIN portal will be made available in Hindi and 14 regional languages by next week, while 17 more laboratories will be added to the INSACOG network to monitor the variants of COVID-19, the health ministry said on Monday.
The Centre said the upsurge of COVID-19 cases is happening in cities and the Omicron variant is the predominant circulating strain.
Rup Narayan Das reveals the towering Odisha leader's role in improving national security after the 1962 War with China.
The female tiger, named Nadia, is believed to be the first known case of an animal infected with COVID-19 in the US. It is suspected that she contracted the virus from a caretaker who was asymptomatic at that time.
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.
Chinese foreign policy will acquire a more ideological and less pragmatic character. It will be conducted with more nationalist overtones, predicts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
The government also appointed Dr Vinod Paul, a pediatrician at the AIIMS, as a member of the NITI Aayog
After some Governors, it was the turn of Vice-Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority M Shashidhar Reddy and five of its members to resign after the new government asked them to quit their posts.
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