'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.'
With the COVID-19 cases under subsidence in the country, the viral infection has risen significantly due to the emergence of a new virus for which the experts are continuously advising to take precautions.
'A probable positive patient walking into a centre is not an ideal situation.'
'India is too large a place to have just 10 labs performing these Covid-19 tests.'
There has been a nearly 150 per cent rise in patients coming to outpatient departments with such complaints, they said.
'The lockdown was for both: To flatten the curve or more correctly, delay the rapid spread of COVID outbreak, and to create healthcare infrastructure.'
The officials of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) also said there are now 1,065 testing labs in the country -- 768 in the public sector and 297 in private.
Three COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including two indigenous ones, are in different phases of development in India.
Ganga Ram hospital Chairperson Dr D S Rana on Tuesday said that Remdesivir is also being considered to be dropped from COVID-19 treatment soon as there is no evidence of its effectiveness in treating COVID-19 patients.
The durability of immunity post COVID-19 vaccination persists for nine months or more and a precautionary dose of vaccine which will be administered to healthcare and frontline workers and citizens above 60 years with comorbidities is to mitigate the severity of infection, hospitalisation and death, the government said on Thursday.
Amid a spike in Covid-19 cases, the Centre on Monday reviewed with states and Union territories the preparedness for pandemic management and the progress of vaccination.
Mandaviya reviewed the pandemic situation, status of vaccination drive and the global scenario of new variants of Covid.
While asserting that the CoWIN portal is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, it said an internal exercise has been initiated to review the existing security measures of CoWIN.
The ICMR is working on a war footing to develop the testing ecosystem -- especially for the screening blood tests. NIV, Pune, is in the process of validating antibody-based screening kits.
'iNCOVACC' is priced at Rs 800 for private markets and at Rs 325 for supplies to the government of India and state governments.
Findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research's fourth national Covid sero survey show there is a ray of hope, but there is no room for complacency and Covid-appropriate behaviour has to be followed, the government said.
Concerned about the rise of antibiotic resistance and the time it takes for drugs developed abroad to reach Indians, the government is considering holding its own clinical trials. Clinical trials for new drugs have so far primarily been conducted only by private Indian or foreign drug firms. But given the stringent nature of India's regulatory environment for clinical trials, several pharmaceutical companies have moved their trials out of India. As a result, only 1.2 per cent of global clinical trials take place in India.
As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in the past 24 hours.
There are 12 sites across India, including private and public hospitals, conducting Phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Based on an earlier letter by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to the 12 sites, volunteer recruitments for the clinical trials were to begin by July 7. At least three sites are yet to kick-start the process.
The decision to remove it from the guidelines comes in the backdrop of some clinicians and scientists writing to Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan cautioning against the "irrational and non-scientific use" of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 in the country.
On the mathematical model which predicts 42,000 cases in the state by April end, the minister said, "The model is based on some scientific ground but it has taken the state's doubling rate of COVID-19 cases at 3.8.
COVID-19 is on the verge of becoming endemic but Indian scientists are keeping a close watch on each new variant and the government would continue to maintain a high alert, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya has said, underlining that the virus has managed to survive and is going to stay.
The Centre and the states need to continue working in collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for COVID-19 prevention and management, Mandaviya said.
The government is likely to soon reduce the gap between the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine and the precaution dose from the current nine months to six months, official sources said on Wednesday.
The Rhesus macaque monkeys, used worldwide in medical research, are believed to be the best non-human primates for such studies.
The daily rise in coronavirus cases in India remained below the 3 lakh-mark for the seventh consecutive day, with 2.4 lakh new cases recorded in a single day, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The daily rise in coronavirus cases in India remained below the 3 lakh-mark for the sixth consecutive day, with 2.57 lakh new cases recorded in a single day, the Union health ministry said on Saturday.
There are now 1,348 testing labs in the country comprising 914 in the public sector and 434 private labs.
'We shot the song Zinda Banda for about six days.' 'We were dancing relentlessly for six days to a point when we thought our knees had started making sounds!' 'He was on set, every day, dancing next to us for all those six days.'
Top officials of health ministry on Thursday informed a parliamentary panel that there are 23 cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 and authorities are closely monitoring the situation, government sources said.
The ICMR on Monday asked states and union territories to stop using the test kits procured from the Chinese companies -- Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics -- due to "wide variations" in their performance.
The Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals has submitted phase 2 data of mRNA vaccine and has also completed the recruitment of phase 3 data.
Mumbai witnessed a sharp jump in new COVID-19 cases at 2,479 on Thursday, up by 831 from a day ago and the highest daily count since January 23, while one more patient succumbed to the infection, the city civic body said.
'Delta continues to be the dominant lineage for new cases across all parts of India in recent samples and remains the most rapidly rising lineage globally that is responsible for multiple outbreaks, including across Southeast Asia, which shows the fastest growth in new cases globally,' the INSACOG said.
Safety and Efficacy results from the final analysis will be available in June, and the final report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication.
Nearly half of all coronavirus patients in the country have been cured, taking the recovery rate to over 48 per cent.
'We are going ahead with the trials assuming what we have is the vaccine.' 'There is also a chance that what you have is not the vaccine. Then, you have to go back to the drawing board again.' 'So far, there has been no success in developing a good vaccine against coronaviruses.' 'That's why there are hundreds of trials going on at different stages in different parts of the world.'
India registered a record single-day spike of 1,31,968 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, pushing its infection tally to 1,30,60,542, while the death toll increased to 1,67,642 with 780 more fatalities in a day, highest since October 18, the Union health ministry data showed.
India registered a record single-day spike of 1,26,789 new COVID-19 cases, pushing its infection tally to 1,29,28,574, while the number of active cases too went upwards to breach the nine lakh-mark again, Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday showed.
During a briefing on the COVID-19 situation, joint secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal also said about 2.94 per cent of the active COVID-19 cases needed oxygen support, 3 per cent needed intensive care units (ICU) and 0.45 per cent required ventilator support.
