A massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process on Tuesday with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine flown to 13 cities across India from Pune and taken to designated national and state-level stores amid tight security.
The Centre on Sunday moved the Delhi High Court seeking recall of its order directing supply of entire allocated oxygen of 490 metric tonnes (MT) to the national capital and warning of contempt action for failure to do so.
'We are a country of amazing ability and the way we have responded to the pandemic is evidence.'
In the Nagpur Central Jail, a COVID-19 patient who has been complaining since the last 10 days of high fever, breathlessness, joint pain, cold and sore throat, is being treated in jail quarantine. The prisoner is Professor G N Saibaba, 90% handicapped, wheelchair-bound, with a damaged heart and pancreas; dependent on others even for his essential bodily functions.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal -- contribute 85.5 per cent of active caseload and 87 per cent of total deaths in India.
In a series of tweets, the health minister said the availability of vaccines can be better understood by an "actual analysis of the facts".
The establishment of these medical colleges will add at least 15,700 MBBS seats in the country.
The Centre stressed that the next three weeks will be critical for the country reeling from the worst health crisis as it announced a series of measures to shore up medical infrastructure and supplies and scale up vaccination.
Legendary Bengali semi-classical singer Sandhya Mukherjee, who had worked with leading music directors such as S D Burman, Naushad and Salil Chaudhury died on Tuesday evening following a massive cardiac arrest, leaving behind millions of mourning fans of all ages across borders.
'The problem is delaying (or missing) the second dose would probably keep you at a 20 per cent risk of still getting COVID-19, till you are fully immunised.'
'Saibaba has 19 ailments, including severe heart and kidney problems.' 'Even healthy persons find their systems failing after Covid.' 'What will happen to someone like Saibaba?', Professor G N Saibaba's wife asks Jyoti Punwani.
The court rejected Chakraborty's bail application. The NCB told the court that she was an 'active member' of a drugs syndicate and procured drugs for Rajput, her boyfriend.
In a statement, they said it was 'unconscionable' that someone as old as Swamy and who was suffering poor health was put in jail amid a pandemic.
Based on this price, state governments, private hospitals, industrial establishments, etc would be able to procure vaccine doses from the manufacturers.
The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune under the ICMR has isolated the monkeypox virus from the clinical specimen of a patient, which can pave the way for development of diagnostic kits and vaccines against the disease, officials said on Wednesday.
Bennicks and Jeyaraj died on June 22 and 23 respectively at a government hospital after being rushed from a prison in Kovilpatti town following complaints of health issues.
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said the highest death rate has been reported in CISF (0.43 per cent), followed by the Assam Rifles (0.40 per cent) CRPF (0.39 per cent).
Right from his arrest in May 2014, the Nagpur jail authorities have denied Professor Saibaba his basic rights, even flouting court orders in the process.
'Mumbai is testing a lot compared to a lot of other places in the country.' 'Now that we exactly know where the hotspots are, and they've been converted into containment zones, there is a lot of testing, going on, from door to door and symptom screening.' 'In the last 10 to 15 days we have definitely done a good job.'
The apex health research body on Tuesday validated the 1,000th testing laboratory, ramping up the capacity for detection of COVID-19 in the country. Currently, three lakh samples can be tested per day, an official said.
Several hospitals in the last few days have asked their healthcare workers staying in hotels during the quarantine period to vacate rooms immediately failing which the charges paid for their overstay would be deducted from their salaries. As per the Union health ministry guidelines issued on May 15, healthcare workers serving in COVID-19 areas do not need to undergo quarantine unless there has been violation in the use of PPE or any other form of high-risk exposure or they have symptoms suggestive of coronavirus infection.
Unconscious children being carried by parents in their arms, people laying on roads, health workers scrambling to attend to those affected by the styrene vapour leak and residents fleeing were some of the scenes that played out near Visakhapatnam on Thursday, bringing back grim memories of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
The total recoveries have climbed to 8,17,208, while there are 4,40,135 active cases of coronavirus in the country at present, the govt said as the COVID-19 tally surged to 12.87 lakh.
Asked during a press briefing if special trains and private vehicles will also be allowed to transport these people as demanded by some states and others, Joint Secretary in the Union home ministry Punya Salila Srivastava said the orders issued at present were for 'using buses and for group of persons'.
'With over 50 per cent of medical seats reserved for those who have the ability to pay a fee ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore for a five-year MBBS course and quotas in accordance with affirmative policies in government colleges, the band of seats available for the not-so-rich and non-OBCs is very narrow.'
Indian citizens in Eastern China Region may apply at the Embassy of India, Beijing for availing urgent consular services, the Consulate said in a notice issued on Tuesday.
The economic impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on emerging economies will depend on a mix of government restrictions, public comfort with social interactions, and capacity of governments and central banks to provide additional policy support to the private sector, Moody's Investors Service said on Wednesday. The emergence of the new variant poses new risks to the global economic growth and inflation outlook, as concerns mount about the variant's health risks and several countries have imposed new travel restrictions in recent days. These restrictions will likely increase over the coming weeks until scientists learn more about the variant, it said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the Bombay high court order granting bail to former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh in a money laundering case.
'We have 25,000 private hospitals participating in this exercise and if each of these hospitals does 200 vaccinations per day, that makes it 50 lakhs.'
Whether the third wave will ravage us depends on the pace of vaccinations, careful and calibrated opening up of establishments, and a strategy to contain the spread in specific states or pockets.
Three mentees pay homage to Sherna Gandhy, the legendary journalist and editor who passed into the ages on April 28 after a long battle with cancer.
He asked the people to shun the argument that they 'want to enjoy before the third wave of coronavirus' and stressed that there should be no compromise in following COVID-19 protocols.
The government has downgraded the risk level of Wuhan for Covid-19 outbreak from high to medium, according to official media reports.
Vardhan said the ICMR is actively researching on reports of COVID-19 reinfection and although the number of such cases is negligible at this moment, the government is fully seized of the importance of the matter, the health ministry said in a statement.
The Government of India has supported the states and undertook a series of actions including provisioning medical oxygen, and other consumables to ensure clinical care of COVID-19 patients in view of the steep rise of COVID-19 trajectory in the country during April- May 2021.
The meeting was attended by the Director Generals of Police and other senior officials of the state governments and Union Territory administrations. The union home secretary reviewed the arrangements for COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and asked the state and UTs to prepare a database of the frontline workers who will receive the vaccine during the initial stages, a home ministry official said.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
My goal is to implement the Sevak project all over India and make the villages true Gandhian villages -- self sustainable in every way, including health, says Dr Thakor Patel, head of the American Association of Physician of Indian Origin's Public Health Committee. Aziz Haniffa reports
Currently, domestic supplies and commercial imports of vaccines attract a 5 per cent Goods and Services Tax, while COVID drugs and oxygen concentrators attract a 12 per cent levy.
The government on Thursday announced a 27 per cent quota for OBCs and 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections in the all-India quota scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from the current academic year, 2021-22.
