The United States has so far allocated only 7.5 million doses of Covid vaccines to India, which is not enough, a top Indian-American Congressman said while urging the Biden Administration to do more.
Over the last four days, the Indian arm of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech have applied to the Drugs Controller General of India seeking emergency use authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccines.
'There is no emergency of a third wave that we are rushing for booster doses.'
The United Kingdom on Wednesday became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, paving the way for mass vaccinations against the deadly novel coronavirus.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) analysis showed that around three months after the third jab, protection against hospitalisation among those aged 65 and over remains at about 90 per cent.
Three big private hospital chains -- Apollo, Fortis and Max -- on Friday announced the launch of Covid-19 immunisation drive for the 18-44 age group at limited centres in the country from May 1 while the Delhi government said it will start the vaccination exercise once it receives doses from the manufacturers.
This decision of revised time interval between two doses is applicable only to Covishield and not to Covaxin vaccine, the ministry said.
Pneumonia and diarrhoea have collectively claimed the lives of over three lakh children in India in 2013, posing a major challenge to public health in the country, a report said.
Choubey said till February 4 total 81 AEFIs, which is 0.096 per cent of the total beneficiaries who have been administered Covaxin, have been reported.
Cautioning that the country is passing through a phase when there are festivals and potential gatherings, he said this is a critical phase as the virus can spread again.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday sought keen oversight and personal indulgence of health ministers, principal secretaries and additional chief secretaries of states and union territories to lead the second nationwide mock drill on the COVID-19 vaccination scheduled to be held on January 8.
Stressing on the need to protect both lives and livelihoods, he said public health action in India and across the world must be continually guided by evidence from four key questions -- how transmissible is the variant, severity of the disease it causes, how well vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect and how common people perceive risk and follow control measures.
Cases with the Omicron variant have already been detected in Karnataka and Gujarat.
With the US education system operating independently from the government, universities are adopting varying strategies when it comes to Covid vaccination.
Several companies and technology heavyweights including Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce are working to create a digital vaccination passport or health passport app in the hope that governments and airlines will require travellers to upload details of their Covid-19 tests and immunisation. The vaccine passport will effectively create digital credentials that could be the key to attending crowded events or even visiting countries.
The company had in December said that the CDSCO had approved a 12-month shelf life for Covaxin, which was nine months earlier, Sohini Das reports.
"Also, 35 per cent deaths were recorded in the age group of 45-60 years, 10 per cent in the age group of 26-44 years and one per cent each in the age group of 18-25 years and below 17 years," the health secy said.
The reason is that because of the hybrid immunity after three waves of natural infection and a large proportion of adults receiving both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the susceptible pool has come down drastically, Lahariya said.
Hari Shukla from Tyne and Wear said he feels it is his duty to receive his first of the two-dose vaccine, a moment UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed as a "huge step forward" as Tuesday was dubbed "V-Day" or Vaccine Day in the UK.
'If the 'ideology' is just Hindutva, meaning cattle slaughter, temple issue, love jihad, joined with random acts on the side of economics and foreign policy, then we are in deeper trouble than we think,' says Aakar Patel.
'What proportion of the people require the vaccine for us to manage this entire COVID-19 situation?'
Interacting with state chief ministers, Modi underscored the enormity of what he described as the world's biggest vaccination exercise, which begins from January 16, saying over 30 crore citizens will get the jabs in the next few months in India against only 2.5 crore people vaccinated so far in over 50 countries in around a month.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the first phase of the pan India roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination drive at 10.30 am via video conferencing.
Vardhan noted that COVID-19 infection among those vaccinated would be very mild and not progress to an advanced stage.
As many as 721,469 appointments were made through the national booking service on Friday -- the day of the announcement -- at an average of more than eight every second. To cope with demand, the NHS said it is using stadiums and football grounds as giant vaccination centres.
The UK's medicines regulator on Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.
The states and Union territories were also urged not to store, reserve, conserve or create a buffer stock of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Union health ministry said in a statement, a day after the start of the second phase of India's inoculation drive in which the coverage has been expanded to include everyone above 60 and those over 45 with specified co-morbidities.
'It is absolutely important for us to continue to message to people that they must wear masks, keep physical distancing, as much as is practically possible, at work or at home.'
Johnson revealed that the number of hospital patients has increased to nearly 27,000, almost a third higher than the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020.
After healthcare and frontline workers, priority will be given to those above 50 years of age and the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crore, it added.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said the COVID-19 vaccination drive will be extended in the coming days and asserted that there should not be any misconceptions about the two Indian vaccines being administered in the country.
'This is a tragedy that must be stopped.'
Paul noted that "three to four months from now, there will be other vaccines and the stockpile will be even bigger. "And more acceleration can be brought about in the vaccination programme," Paul added.
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
The UK government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine once it is ready for rollout and the doses are being manufactured before it has been shown to be successful in order to save time once it clears all the regulatory stages.
The supplementary nutrition programme and the Poshan Abhiyaan under the Women and Child Development Ministry has been merged to launch Mission Poshan 2.0 to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome, according to the Union Budget announced on Monday.
"We know that post the COVID-19 infection, immunity is only for a short duration of 3-6 months, after which the same person is vulnerable to getting reinfected. The reinfection will depend on the viral load to which the susceptible person is exposed to. We have seen some Chief Ministers and national leaders also getting infected a second time. So nobody is permanently immune," Prof. Murthy said.
Addressing a virtual Downing Street press conference, Boris Johnson acknowledged the divided views on lifting all lockdown restrictions to declare that his update does not imply that the pandemic "is over".
A total of 3,006 session sites across all states and union territories will be virtually connected during the launch at 10.30 am by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each session site.
The budgetary allocation for the sector is Rs 60,908.22 crore, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).
