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.
According to the World Health Organisation, 10 candidate vaccines for COVID-19 are in the clinical evaluation and 126 are in the pre-clinical stage.
The Covishield maker's forte throughout the past half a century has been a combination of affordable vaccines and high volumes. Its tetanus, diphtheria and measles vaccines are known throughout the world, reports Sohini Das.
World leaders thanked India for its help and support in combating the coronavirus pandemic through "early and meaningful" shipments of COVID-19 vaccine doses, as they addressed the high-level UN General Assembly session this year.
On the whole, this film has a very average feel.
As states grapple with a shortage of coronavirus vaccines, the Centre on Thursday said that over two billion doses will be made available in the country in five months between August and December, enough to vaccinate the entire population.
The procurement and distribution will be centralised though the government is yet to take a call on the initial number of doses that will be procured.
As the global debate on booster shots gathers momentum, several scientists in New Delhi said the priority must be to ensure that more people are inoculated with at least their first jab.
This week, global drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective, including in adults over 65 years of age.
The combined sales of the branded versions of the products in the US is about $3.5 billion.
"In India's development cooperation, we will be guided by our partners' development priorities. Our assistance does not create indebtedness and is without conditionalities," he said at the 44th Annual Meeting of the G-77 Foreign Ministers on Thursday, in a veiled reference to China's loans which has led to debt-traps in some countries.
The approval comes a day after Sinopharm said its vaccine showed 79.34 per cent efficacy and a 99.52 per cent antibody-positive conversion rate in the interim results of the Phase III clinical trials.
Medical experts have warned that the volume of vaccine available to fight the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 in coming years is expected to fall far short of global demand, despite an unprecedented effort to manufacture billions of doses.
India has airlifted more than 6 million COVID-19 doses to nine countries in Phase-I under its initiative termed "Vaccine Maitri".
Gates, who is to attend the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting, on Monday said there is reason to be optimistic than ever about the future progress using vaccines to give all children a healthy start to life.
Aurobindo Pharma, Cadila Healthcare and Serum Institute are readying their vaccine candidates.
The PM's visit would signal a strong intent towards making sure India becomes a beneficiary as vaccines become a massively traded commodity in the coming years.
So far the coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected more than 54 million people around the world and killed over 1.3 million others.
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.
Serum Institute is investing $200 million to create capacities for the COVID-19 vaccine. Sohini Das profiles its 39-year-old CEO.
'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.'
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.
Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E are among the domestic pharma firms working on the coronavirus vaccines in India.
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.
The proposals were considered by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board at its meeting held on July 4.
A summary of Wednesday night's action in the UEFA Champions League.
'We are hoping by March, the government allows us to export and give it to the private market.'
'There is a Covid vaccine-mania that is happening in the world now and the vaccine makers are using this mania for their own gains'
A dipstick survey covering 30 villages in Rajasthan threw up some worrisome numbers. About 250 children missed their regular vaccination schedule in March alone. These numbers are alarming, since India has around 600,000 villages according to the 2011 census. Sohini Das reports.
In its morning update, the Union health ministry said the total number of positive cases has reached 2,16,919 with a record spike of 9,304 new cases since Wednesday 8 am across the country, while the death toll has increased to 6,075 with 260 more fatalities in this period. A PTI tally of figures announced by different states and union territories, as of 9.50 pm, showed a higher number of confirmed cases across the country at 2,17,389 and the death toll at 6,233.
Hum Sab Ullu Hain is a brutal assault on the senses, rants Nishi Tiwari.
The S&P BSE Sensex ended 80 points up at 23,789 while the Nifty50 closed at 7,235, up 24 points.
'This is a tragedy that must be stopped.'
The list acknowledges the 'inroads women are making in the business world'.
Mukesh's television unit has been aggressively wrapping up deals with hundreds of small players in a street-by-street effort to conquer that final hurdle in its cable TV drive
He accused the BJP of creating friction between communities and 'igniting' fire and ramped up his attack on the PM.
The higher rate cut by RBI is positive for rate-sensitive sectors in the medium to long term.
