"The concrete actions are a stern indication that Government of India is making all out efforts to increase vaccine production in the country as well as attracting foreign vaccine manufacturers to supply the required vaccine doses for national Covid vaccination programme," the ministry in a statement.
The IMF on Tuesday cut India's economic growth forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year, with its chief economist Gita Gopinath saying that the slight downgrade is mainly due to the impact of the spread of the Omicron variant. "If you look at the 2021-22 fiscal year, we have a slight downgrade of -0.5 percentage points and for the next fiscal year 2022-23 we have a slight upgrade of 0.5 percentage points. So, growth for the previous fiscal year is now nine per cent and for this year now is at nine per cent. We moved it up slightly," Gopinath told reporters during a news conference in Washington. In its latest update of World Economic Outlook on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund has cut India's economic growth forecast to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year ending March 31, joining a host of agencies which have downgraded their projections on concerns over the impact of the spread of Omicron on business activity and mobility.
The COVID-19 vaccination drive was successfully conducted on the first day, Additional Secretary in the Union health ministry Manohar Agnani said during a press briefing. Giving an update on COVID-19 vaccination, the health ministry said 3,352 vaccination sessions were held and 1,91,181 beneficiaries vaccinated.
The guidelines note that while there is not enough evidence yet to measure the impact of school closures on the disease transmission rates, the adverse effects of school closures on children's safety and learning are well documented. Gains made in increasing access to children's education in recent decades risk being lost and, in the worse cases, reversed completely.
The UK government is under increasing pressure on Monday to review its COVID-19 vaccine protocol in place for travellers from India, after its updated rules effective from next month failed to recognise Indian vaccines under an expanded list of countries.
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.
This doctor couple put their faith in India. And in return India has put faith in them.
The novel coronavirus has mutated before, and both companies say they've found that their vaccines worked against other variations of the virus.
Facing the twin task of fighting the coronavirus pandemic today and building a better tomorrow, the world is experiencing a new Bretton Woods moment, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said
The experts said there is a need to relook at the testing strategy in a way that it results in guiding the public health response and effectively limiting the spread of the disease.
'The lockdown was for both: To flatten the curve or more correctly, delay the rapid spread of COVID outbreak, and to create healthcare infrastructure.'
When a person gets an infection even after being vaccinated against it, it is called a breakthrough case.
The trial began at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle as the first participant received the investigational vaccine.
COVAXIN, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, has got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India
The WHO expert noted that measures taken in India such as the nationwide lockdown have had an impact in slowing transmission but the risk of an increase in cases looms as the country opens up.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop the entire rule from going into effect.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the Centre to provide medical oxygen to Delhi.
The president said he will be signing a number of executive orders over the next several days of the week.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai held a meeting with experts, and senior ministers and officials of his government to assess the COVID-19 situation in the state and curbs that were put in place to control its spread.
The aim of the mission is to accelerate the development of at least six vaccine candidates and ensure that they are licenced and introduced in market for emergency use at the earliest.
'Given that the globally most prevalent clade of SARS-CoV-2 is also predominant in India, any vaccine or drug that gets developed in the world should also prove effective in India'
'What prevents infection are masks, physical distancing and good ventilation.'
After a meeting of the Group of Ministers on coronavirus, the government has proposed a set of social distancing measures to be in force till March 31, the officials told reporters.
After the outbreak of Nipah at a hamlet in Perambra last week, 16 people have tested positive, of whom 13 have died so far.
Bharat Biotech on Thursday said it plans to produce additional 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine 'Covaxin' at its subsidiary's Ankleshwar (Gujarat) based facility, taking the overall production volume of the vaccine to 1 billion (100 crore) dosages per annum.
Prohibition of all types of gatherings, reduced size of weddings and funerals, running of public transport at half seating capacity and scaled down presence in government offices were some of the restrictions imposed by the Delhi government on Saturday amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
If we are able to provide safe, hygienic toilets, and affordable sanitary napkins, we could stop girls from dropping out of schools and help women feel more confident.
The Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
The United Kingdom government has pledged 20 million to support the "ChAdOx1 nCoV-19" coronavirus vaccine trial programme, with UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock saying the government would "throw everything at" finding a vaccine against the deadly virus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said international experts were now on the ground in China to understand the outbreak and inform the next steps in the global response.
India's COVID-19 fatality rate has dropped significantly to 2.43 per cent from 3.36 per cent on June 17 due to effective clinical management of coronavirus cases, the health ministry and asserted that the country has handled the pandemic 'relatively well'.
Experts say one in every four mental health problems is due to depression and anxiety at the workplace.
A day before the end of the fourth phase of lockdown, the home ministry on Saturday issued new guidelines for the phased reopening of all activities outside containment zones till June 30.
The reduced severity of the Omicron variant is good news for now, but it is the result of an 'evolutionary mistake' and does not indicate that the virus which causes COVID-19 is becoming less virulent, a leading Indian-origin scientist from the University of Cambridge warned on Thursday.
'Not one single, but multiple trials are there to quote. However, these will be published as scientific manuscripts.' 'This includes integrative as well as standalone approaches in Covid mitigation.'
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.
Facing accusations of delay in placing orders for vaccines, the government on Thursday defended its vaccine procurement policy saying it has been pursuing Pfizer, J&J and Moderna since mid-2020 for the earliest possible imports, and has even waived local trials for well-established foreign vaccine makers.
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.
The US vice-president-elect received a dose of the Moderna vaccine from clinical nurse Patricia Cummings at United Medical Center, which is located in Southeast Washington, DC.
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