Railway employees including station masters, engine drivers, ticket checkers, etc too have been selected for vaccination and their list is being compiled for the exercise.
To add to the worries of the cable operators and broadcasters, the government is set to launch a 24-hour "must carry" health channel called DD-Health at an annual outlay of Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.8 billion).
The government will soon unveil a national strategy on public-private partnership for public health, a senior government official said on Friday.
Based on the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Rediff Labs have created a chart showing daily count of Covid cases for the past 14 days.
The scare of communicable diseases seems to be gripping the country with Maharashtra reporting 28 Zika cases this year, the highest since 2021.
Night patrolling on hospital premises and regulating access for people to key areas are among the measures the Centre has asked states to implement to ensure the safety of medics at workplaces, following Supreme Court orders in the rape-murder case of a junior doctor in Kolkata.
Late-stage diagnosis is a major issue, with over 75 per cent of cases being detected at advanced stages (50 per cent at Stage 3 and 25 per cent at Stage 4). This significantly reduces survival rates.
The 28 new ministers who joined the Chouhan cabinet on July 2 include 20 of cabinet rank and eight ministers of state.
Nine cases have been detected from Maharashtra, eight from Karnataka, six from Kerala, four from Tamil Nadu and two from Telangana, they added.
COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1 has spread to 15 states and Union territories with a total of 923 cases of the infection reported so far, according to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG).
In India, 11.9 lakh excess deaths occurred in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, 17 per cent higher compared to 2019, an international study has found.
India on May 4 began lockdown 3.0 in an attempt to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus. As the country continues to battle the virus, Rediff Labs has analysed how states have been dealing with COVID-19 as the weeks pass by.
The Union home ministry on Thursday announced that with this, the restrictions placed on visa and international travel since March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic stand further eased given the present overall pandemic situation.
On Monday, the ministry had put the recovery rate from COVID-19 at 22.17 per cent.
The top three states which have the highest number of primary health centre's functioning are Uttar Pradesh (3,497), Karnataka (2,353) and Rajasthan (2,083).
Given the gap between budgetary allocation and use, a parliamentary standing committee has asked the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ayush) to take steps to prevent underutilisation of funds under the National Ayush Mission (NAM) scheme. According to the data, the ministry was allocated Rs 1,200 crore for the mission in the Budgetary Estimate (BE) for FY24. The Revised Estimate (RE) for the year fell to Rs 815 crore, of which Rs 589 crore, or 74 per cent, has been spent till January.
The finance ministry on Wednesday reimposed expenditure curbs on ministries and government departments for July-September quarter. There will be no spending restrictions on the ministries of health, rural development, agriculture, MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) and railways as part of a two-pronged strategy. "The existing guidelines for expenditure control have been reviewed. "Keeping in view the evolving situation arising out of Covid-19 and anticipated cash position of the government, it is felt essential to regulate Quarterly Expenditure Plan (QEP)/Monthly Expenditure Plan (MEP) of specific ministries/departments for July-September, 2021," the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry said in a notification.
Apart from these six deaths, 22 others died of heart attacks in the state during this period.
Even though the number of cases is rising and the JN.1 sub-variant has been detected in the country, there is no cause of immediate concern as 92 per cent of those infected are opting for home-based treatment, indicating mild illness, they said.
Discordant voices emerged on Sunday from the Mahayuti even as the alliance continued to remain in the throes of government formation more than week after it swept the Maharashtra assembly polls.
Scheduled international flights have been suspended in India since March 23 last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
'It is clarified that no data has leaked from Co-WIN portal and the entire data of residents is safe and secure on this digital platform,' the health ministry said in a statement.
Indian tennis player Sania Mirza expressed concerns over the spread of coronavirus and urged people to stay at home saying that it is the 'biggest need of the hour'.
The government on Monday decided to immediately dispatch search and rescue teams of the National Disaster Response Force, medical teams and relief material to earthquake-hit Turkey following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's instructions to offer all possible assistance to the country.
The number of active cases has crossed the 150-mark in Noida, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Sunil Kumar Sharma said.
Bracing to deal with Ebola epidemic which has claimed more than 4000 lives globally, the government took stock of the measures being undertaken for strengthening the preparedness, surveillance and response system in states.
Candidates who appeared for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Postgraduate 2023 exam will now be eligible to participate in the counselling process.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea challenging Union health ministry rules which prohibit donor gametes to couples opting for children through surrogacy.
The minister said there has been no cases of Nipah reported from anywhere in the country
Pednekar was a nurse before coming to politics and has decided to join the team of BMC's BYL Nair Hospital to aid the COVID-19 patients in their fight against the virus.
An 80-year-old man infected with the virus died at Kasturba Hospital, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said on Saturday.
The petitioner's lawyer interjected the rules are being framed for the last 5-6 years but nothing concrete has been done yet.
A notification of the revised Schedule M rules by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has elicited mixed responses from the pharma sector and industry observers. While the industry has welcomed the revision of rules, several analysts said that implementation and compliance can become a challenge for smaller pharmaceutical companies. The Schedule M of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules specifies the good manufacturing practices (GMPs), which aim to ensure quality of drugs made in the country.
According to the notification, publishers of online curated content displaying tobacco products or their use will be required to display anti-tobacco health spots each of a minimum of 30 seconds at the beginning and middle of the programme.
In the Union budget, Rs 65,011.8 crore has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, up from Rs 62,659.12 crore in 2019-20.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in the country at 4.30 pm on Sunday, according to the sources.
Minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh said it is a major step to place the right talent for the right role.
A total of 1,226 cases of COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1 have been reported in the country so far with Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh recording the highest number of cases till now, according to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) on Thursday.
Karnataka has the highest number of medical seats in the country at 11,745, of which 3,750 seats were in government institutions and 7,995 seats were in private colleges.
