The decline in the effectiveness of Covaxin, India's indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, from 77.8 per cent to 50 per cent during a Delta-driven case surge in April and May this year is neither bad nor surprising, say scientists.
In a letter to states and UTs on Monday, Additional Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Arti Ahuja advised them to pay attention to this aspect immediately and increase the testing in a strategic manner keeping in view the trend of case positivity in specific areas.
'Queen's mural is going to stay here for years and years to come.'
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
India said perhaps the Permanent Representative of Pakistan is "not aware that Osama bin Laden was hiding in their own country in plain sight, and it is the US forces which got him inside Pakistan. Nor have they heard their Prime Minister refer to Osama bin Laden as a martyr."
The ministry said the country has a robust system of reporting deaths, including those caused by COVID-19, and the data is compiled regularly at different levels of governance, starting from the gram panchayat level to the district level and the state level.
"The external affairs minister will be visiting Moscow to attend the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers' meeting which is scheduled on September 10," spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivstava said at an online media briefing.
'I would like to reassure the general populace that your government, both Centre and state and the city councils are working at an accelerated pace.'
The Xi Jinping regime might try to quell internal distress by directing nationalism and militarism against India, warn Ajay Shah and Gautam Bambawale.
A key suspect and his accomplice accused of fanning communal hatred on social media and instigating the recent violence against the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh have confessed to their crime in a pre-trial hearing, a court official has said.
Is the worst of the Covid crisis behind India? As cases dip three weeks after Diwali, the answer is a possible yes, say several experts, attributing the downslide to a large section of the population already exposed to the virus during the second wave and a stepped up vaccination campaign.
The ministry also said about 14 most affected countries with a cumulative population almost equal to that of India have reported 55.2 times more COVID-19 deaths and 22.5 times more cases.
Nearly half of all coronavirus patients in the country have been cured, taking the recovery rate to over 48 per cent.
From 3.38 per cent in April, the fatality rate in the country has come down to 2.87 per cent as against 6.4 per cent globally.
The South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA) on Wednesday approved the use of Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine after BioNTech and Pfizer announced that two doses of their vaccine may not be enough to protect against the Omicron variant.
Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh said the remaining 77 per cent are still vulnerable to the viral disease and containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.
Experts say herd immunity is said to have been developed in a population segment if at least 50-60 per cent of those are found to have the presence of antibodies in a sero-prevalence survey.
Australia captain Tim Paine said the chances of their first ever test against Afghanistan going ahead are "not looking good" with the Taliban unwilling to let women play cricket and questioned why the game's governing body had remained quiet on the issue.
The party has said resources should now be focussed on curbing the COVID-19 crisis and tackling floods in the state and not holding the polls.
The first part of the study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) revealed that 0.73 per cent of the population surveyed showed evidence of past exposure to SARS-CoV-2, and that urban slum population was the most vulnerable to the infection, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said at a press conference.
Given the robust and statute-based death registration system in India, while some cases could go undetected as per the principles of infectious disease and its management, missing out on the deaths is unlikely, the Union health ministry said.
Core to the planning is the rigidly-enforced closed loop that physically separates Games-related personnel from the local population
The Congress fielded Channi from two seats -- Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar and Bhadaur in Barnala, a move which showed how much the Congress was banking on him. He lost both, and the party received a drubbing from the AAP.
The test kit has the advantage of testing 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours, so that healthcare professionals can proceed quickly with necessary next steps.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Joint Secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said it is wrong to just look at the total number of cases and state that India has the seventh highest number of cases as the population of countries also should be taken into account. About 14 countries with a cumulative population almost equal to that of India have reported 55.2 times more COVID-19 deaths, he said.
Team Taiwan won't be at Winter Games opening ceremony
'There is no emergency of a third wave that we are rushing for booster doses.'
'Unless we see four weeks of low and stable numbers with only minor fluctuations, we cannot call the valley as endemic just as yet'
Chatterjee, whose early career was in the Indian Army, was decorated for gallantry by the President of India in 1995.
While there is a glimmer of hope and India's COVID-19 numbers are on a definite decline for a combination of reasons, a vaccination programme continues to be important, particularly given the presence of a mutant, more transmissible strain, several experts said while cautioning against infection upticks ahead.
Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said 50 districts account for 66 per cent of the total caseload and the COVID-19 case fatality rate has progressively declined to 2.10 per cent, the lowest since the first lockdown was imposed on March 25.
A circular-cum-advisory issued by the state Directorate of Health Services last week said the second wave of the pandemic is likely in January-February, and asked officials concerned to ramp up COVID-19 testing in the state.
Shahid Jameel, recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, also said that the country had already reached community transmission a long time ago.
New Delhi has a chance to rid itself of its image as the bully in the subcontinent by helping a neighbour tackle problems that India, for once, has no role in creating. It should grab the opportunity with both hands, suggests Aditi Phadnis.
Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 and 65.2 per cent protection against the new Delta variant.
Vaccinating 100-200 people in each session per day, monitoring them for 30 minutes after administering the shots for any adverse event and allowing only one beneficiary at a time are among the guidelines issued by the Centre for the COVID-19 inoculation drive.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
To resist external pressure, it could use India's inherent assets and try and make democracy stronger by giving more space to human rights and minority rights, advises Aakar Patel.
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