35 districts have been reporting high active COVID-19 caseload and fatality rate. These 35 districts comprise all 11 districts in Delhi, Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal; Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra; Surat in Gujarat; Pondicherry in Puducherry and East Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired a high-level meet with representatives of states/UTs to also review and discussed the COVID-19 management and response strategy through video conference.
The Centre on Wednesday placed a second purchase order with the Serum Institute of India for the supply of one crore doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine 'Covishield', each costing Rs 210, including GST, sources said.
Centre has sent an advisory to states on HFMD (Hand Foot and Mouth Disease), commonly known as Tomato Flu, stating that it's a self-limiting illness targeting mostly young children aged 1-10 years and immune-compromised adults and no specific drug exists to treat it.
In a statement, the ministry also said several steps have been planned to support the cheetah project, including the establishment of a Cheetah Research Center with facilities for rescue, rehabilitation, capacity building, and interpretation.
Out of the 447 adverse events following immunisation, only 3 required hospitalisation.
Termed 'Unlock 1', the Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
The touring Pakistan squad has returned negative in a fifth round of COVID-19 tests and will now be able to leave their managed isolation on Tuesday, subject to clearance from the health ministry, New Zealand Cricket said on Monday.
Travellers from these 99 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Russia, which have been listed under 'Category A', have to submit a self-declaration form on the Air Suvidha portal (newdelhiairport.in) before the scheduled travel, apart from uploading a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report, according to the revised Guidelines for International Arrivals released by the Union health ministry on November 11.
The preventive aspect of cancer is strengthened under comprehensive primary healthcare through the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre scheme by the promotion of wellness activities and targeted communication at the community level.
If the items and services such selected subsequently pass the test from the fitment committee and the GST Council, this would be the first of such rate hikes, after a series of cuts in the process of rate rationalisation that started in November 2017.
The move comes in view of rising cases of the infection, weekly positivity rates and weekly deaths in some districts.
Remdesivir is considered a key anti-viral drug in the fight against Covid-19. In addition, the government has taken three steps to ensure easy access of hospitals and patients to Remdesivir.
'This means that there is a higher likelihood of individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 to be reinfected with the Omicron variant'
More than 1.84 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with states and UTs, while nearly 51 lakh doses are in the pipeline and will be received by them within the next three days, the Union Health Ministry said.
Top officers across various ministries participate in the meeting that started at 8 pm on Saturday. The meeting is currently underway. The country is currently witnessing a second and more severe wave of the pandemic.
Punjab has sent an email saying that four deaths suspected to be due to lack of oxygen have been reported in a private hospital in Amritsar district, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a written reply.
Joint Secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said 154 new positive cases of the disease have been reported due to the transit-related history of those who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation. These include 23 new cases from Jammu and Kashmir, 20 from Telengana, 18 from Delhi, 65 from Tamil Nadu, 17 from Andhra Pradesh, nine from Andaman and Nicobar Islands and two from Puducherry.
"The new food supply pipeline has also made it easier to supply better food in larger quantities to them, which is a good thing. Otherwise the situation remains the same," said Negi, who spoke to his brother.
At present only government labs are permitted to do the test and the Centre is making arrangements to nearly double its capacity to test for the respiratory ailment. According to Health Ministry officials, around 60 accredited private laboratories are likely to be given permission to conduct the tests soon.
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Talking about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Agarwal said, "If the Tablighi Jamaat incident had not taken place and we compare the rate of doubling -- that is in how many days the cases have doubled, we will see that currently it is 4.1 days (including Jamaat cases) and if the incident had not taken place and additional cases had not come then the doubling rate would have been 7.4 days."
Several states and UTs including Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana have decided to opt for global tenders for procurement of anti-coronavirus shots with the domestic supply falling short to meet the rising demand.
On media reports quoting some Maharashtra government officials that vaccines in the state are "finished" and adversely impacting the vaccination drive, the ministry said a balance of 7,49,960 vaccine doses is still available with the state for administration to eligible population groups.
The government will soon unveil a national strategy on public-private partnership for public health, a senior government official said on Friday.
Of the 1,48,266 beneficiaries who were administered the vaccine on Monday, 8,656 were from Bihar, 1,822 from Assam, 36,888 from Karnataka, 7,070 from Kerala, 6,665 from Madhya Pradesh, 7,628 from Tamil Nadu, 10,352 from Telangana, 11,588 from West Bengal and 3,111 were from Delhi.
'When manufacturing or even services cannot generate the kind of employment they are looking for, they prefer to be unemployed rather than under-employed.'
The Standing Technical Sub-Committee (STSC) of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) on Thursday recommended reducing the gap between the second and precaution doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the current nine to six months, official sources said.
The guidelines are being drafted to dispel any misconception and raise awareness regarding spread of the disease from a deceased
On the basis of feedback from the teams, the ministry has written to the states highlighting the areas of concern, including sub-optimal containment operations and contact tracing, skewed testing and shortage of health workers. Authorities need to work in these areas, it said.
The ministry said the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at the National Centre for Disease Control, one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani (near Kolkata), one at the National Institute of Virology Pune, seven at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences Hospital Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and one at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.
The Union health ministry on Sunday clarified that already booked online appointments for second dose of Covishield vaccine will remain valid and the same will not be cancelled on Co-WIN platform.
The Centre on Saturday strongly advised 12 states and Union Territories reporting a surge in coronavirus cases to significantly increase testing and ensure people follow COVID-appropriate behaviour, noting that one infected person could spread infection to an average of 406 individuals in a 30-day window without restrictions.
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.
The highest number of confirmed cases are from Maharashtra (748), followed by Tamil Nadu at 571 and Delhi with 523 cases. Cases in Telangana have gone up to 321, in Kerala to 314, in Uttar Pradesh to 305, while the number of cases has gone up to 274 in Rajasthan.
According to the National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Centre, the earthquake with an epicentre in Jajarkot district was recorded at 11.47 pm.
This may include Rs 1,500 as a screening test for suspect cases and an additional Rs 3,000 for confirmation test, the guidelines said.
This will be an upfront payment for the vaccine doses that these two companies will supply to the government.
Medical students are in for a bonanza with the government planning to double availability of undergraduate and postgraduate seats to meet a target of 80,000 MBBS and 45,000 PG seats in India by 2021.
"To make sure there isn't a Covid surge in the country, PM Modi has asked us to be careful. The government is also preparing if at the Covid cases increase. Today, mock drills are conducted across Covid hospitals in the country to make sure people get proper treatment," Mandaviya said.
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