The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said in its latest Yellow Card monitoring of the coronavirus vaccine programme this week that of the 18.1 million people who had the Oxford vaccine in the UK, 30 people developed blood clots and seven had died as of March 24.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
'Prevention plus vaccination is what is going to take us into better territory by September or October.'
The approval comes a day after Sinopharm said its vaccine showed 79.34 per cent efficacy and a 99.52 per cent antibody-positive conversion rate in the interim results of the Phase III clinical trials.
"I realise that a lot of Indians who have taken Covishield are facing issues with travel to the EU, I assure everyone, I have taken this up at the highest levels and hope to resolve this matter soon, both with regulators and at a diplomatic level with countries," Poonawalla said in a tweet.
Frontline healthcare staff, people over the age of 80 and care home workers will be among the first to get the vaccine as part of Phase 1 of the programme from Tuesday, which was approved for rollout by the UK's independent regulator earlier this week.
There is a process to be followed for EUL and pre-qualification of vaccines under which a company has to complete phase 3 trials and submit the whole data to the regulatory department of WHO which is examined by an expert advisory group," Swaminathan said.
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.
Australia's medicines and medical devices regulator on Monday formally recognised India's Covaxin, a vaccine against the coronavirus as the country's border was reopened for the first time in nearly 20 months.
The British-Swedish pharmaceutical major and the UK's medicines regulator said that the vaccines produced by Oxford University in collaboration with AstraZeneca to protect against COVID-19 are safe.
'Scientific data has proven that masks can reduce COVID-91 transmission by 53 per cent...A booster dose of vaccine, even if it works, is just a temporary fix'
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 technical advisory group of the UN health agency which met on Tuesday has sought "additional clarifications" from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to conduct a final "risk-benefit assessment" for Emergency Use Listing of the vaccine.
The previous single-day record was on May 7 at 2,769 deaths.
Bajaj Finserv was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, soaring around 8 per cent, followed by Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and SBI.
The vaccine would be first made available to the vulnerable population and eventually, it would be available in the private market for all.
M&M was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, jumping around 6 per cent, followed by Titan, HCL Tech, Tata Steel, Infosys and TCS. On the other hand, Axis Bank, HUL, Kotak Bank and Bharti Airtel were among the laggards.
Only half India's population has received the first shot of Covishield and Covaxin and the government's immediate task is to first vaccinate its adult population before placing its focus on children.
A massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process on Tuesday with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine flown to 13 cities across India from Pune and taken to designated national and state-level stores amid tight security.
'We're clear Covishield is not a problem. The UK is open to travel and we're already seeing a lot of people going from India to the UK, be it tourists, business people or students,' Alex Ellis, British high commissioner to India, said.
Tata Steel was the top gainer among the Sensex constituents, surging around 8 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Infosys, Sun Pharma, Kotak Bank, ONGC and UltraTech Cement. On the other hand, IndusInd Bank, Reliance Industries, Titan, Asian Paints and HDFC Bank were in the red.
'A third wave is possible, but we must try to restrict it to a low level by adopting all personal protection and public policy measures to prevent viral transmission, while speeding up vaccination.'
In two days since its launch, an online campaign (https://www.change.org/p/cancel-the-tokyo-olympics-to-protect-our-lives-stoptokyoolympic) called "Stop Tokyo Olympics" has gathered over 210,000 signatures, exceeding its initial 200,000 goal.
New infections have spiked ahead of the Olympics, which are set to start in July
IOC chief said he believed more than 80 per cent of residents of the Olympic Village would be vaccinated or booked for vaccination ahead of the Games
If booster shots are given on priority, the pace of vaccination may slow further. In the worst case scenario, the country will take till mid-March to vaccinate its entire adult population partially.
In a virtual conference from Moscow, Dmitriev said Sputnik V is not only 'one of the most effective' but also among the 'affordable' vaccines in the world.
To enable large-scale vaccine studies to take place across the UK, the aim is to get 500,000 people signed up by October, which is considered vital in the fight against coronavirus.
The Centre has also contacted five domestic and three multinational vaccine makers to understand how soon a candidate vaccine against Covid-19 will be ready.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the COVID-19 vaccine will be available in the next few months and it is estimated that by July-August 400-500 million doses will be made available for 25-30 crore people.
In the next two weeks, the United States will detail plans to equitably distribute about 80 million (8 crore) COVID-19 vaccine doses globally without 'political requirements' of those receiving them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
The Biden administration had been under pressure to send the excess COVID-19 vaccines with the US to nations like India, which are facing severe vaccine shortages.
This week, global drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective, including in adults over 65 years of age.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna's announcement comes just a week after Pfizer and Biontech said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants.
AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford are facing questions about their Covid-19 vaccine and whether regulators would quickly authorise its emergency use after the pharma company acknowledged an error in the vaccine dosage received by some participants and other irregularities and omissions, according to the New York Times.
Scientists around the world, including in India, suggest it hasn't been tested properly given the time constraint and there may not be enough evidence to prove its efficacy.
Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E are among the domestic pharma firms working on the coronavirus vaccines in India.
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