'Whenever you roll out: effectiveness is important, operational logistics are important, side effects are important and vaccine hesitancy is important.'
Some vaccine frontrunners are in advanced stages of trial and could hit the market by early next year, making the task of securing "last mile connectivity" and ensuring that nothing goes wrong before the shot is administered more urgent.
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.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
'Mortality or hospitalisation has not increased in South Africa because of the new variant.' 'There is nothing to show so far that it is more infectious.' 'I am of the opinion that at the moment, there is no reason to panic.'
India's drug regulator Drugs Controller General of India has granted permission to Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company Cipla to import Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for restricted emergency use in the country, official sources said on Tuesday.
Students who have received admission to foreign universities are struggling with unexpected delays, additional living costs and scarcity of vaccine supplies.
However, in two different dose regimens, the vaccine's efficacy was 90 per cent in one and 62 per cent in the other.
'Once they meet me, they know I don't need to be typecast as the Indian underdog.'
'Even after vaccines are given, precautions like using a mask and maintaining social distancing have to be taken.'
'If you approached it with that level of aggression in 100 days, you would have vaccinated more than half of your country.' 'On a mass scale you will be able to eliminate that wave.'
The data leak obtained by 'The Australian' newspaper has revealed how the alleged CPC members are employed with some of the world's biggest corporations in the areas of defence, banks and pharmaceutical giants manufacturing coronavirus vaccines.
Asserting that India is on track to vaccinate its entire adult population by December, top officials on Monday said a blueprint is in place to ensure a total supply of 187.2 crore doses by the year-end that would be enough for the country's 94 crore 18-plus population.
'There is a Covid vaccine-mania that is happening in the world now and the vaccine makers are using this mania for their own gains'
The vaccine would be first made available to the vulnerable population and eventually, it would be available in the private market for all.
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.
COVAX, 'the global COVID vaccine equity scheme', has so far delivered 65 million doses to 124 countries and economies but it is dependent on countries and manufacturers honouring their commitments.
Addressing a press briefing, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said healthcare workers and frontline workers need not register themselves as their database has been populated on to the Co-WIN vaccine delivery management system in a bulk manner.
'What proportion of the people require the vaccine for us to manage this entire COVID-19 situation?'
'We lost our place in being first in the epidemic, when it hit India so hard, but we were actually the epicentre of the epidemic from essentially April 2020, for almost an entire year. We had such high cases. We were the country that had the most mixed response.'
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.
'If at all there is going to be a second wave, it will not be very strong unlike in the US and Europe.'
The Finance Ministry further said decision on seven FDI proposals has been deferred.
The government has cleared 19 foreign investment proposals, including that of Walt Disney Company and Reckitt Benckiser (India), entailing total investment of Rs 2,326.72 crore (Rs 23.26 billion).
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.
Launches cloud-based version of solution to target mid-size clients in life sciences.
'The government had a vaccine from January.' 'The government should have given the vaccine to all population above the age of 45, right from the start.' 'Each state has its own problems, but as far as vaccine coverage in India is concerned, there have been mistakes.'
India's Supreme Court in April rejected a patent for Novartis AG's cancer drug Glivec, saying it was an amended version of a known molecule called imatinib, setting the precedent for more such cases in the country.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
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