As India launches the world's most ambitious and biggest vaccination drive against COVID-19, the country will encounter the formidable challenge of rapidly scaling up distribution of the vaccines to secure immunity for its entire population, two prominent Indian scientists at World Health Organisation have said.
The Indian teams made winning starts in the Open and women's sections of the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai on Friday.
Addressing an online question and answer session, WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there would be at least one effective vaccine by 2021 but it would be available 'only in limited quantities'. "Most people agree, it's starting with healthcare workers, and frontline workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on," Swaminathan said on prioritising who gets the vaccine first.
Indian Grand Master Pentala Harikrishna beat Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in his eighth round tie in the Moscow FIDE Grand Prix in Moscow.
India will be fielding three teams each in the Open and women's sections respectively.
The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus.
The WHO expert noted that measures taken in India such as the nationwide lockdown have had an impact in slowing transmission but the risk of an increase in cases looms as the country opens up.
A new sub-lineage BA.2.75 of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in countries like India and the World Health Organisation is following this, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta won the Commonwealth Chess Championship after settling for a draw with Indian national title holder G Akash in the 11th and final round that concluded here at the Boardwalk.
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 trial began at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle as the first participant received the investigational vaccine.
India's official COVID-19 tally on Wednesday was 4,18,480 (4.18 lakh), the third highest in the world after the US and Brazil.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is just 13 years old but the boy is already going places and this was his second win against a 2700 Grandmaster.
Indian Grandmaster P Harikrishna started his campaign by outclassing Eric De Haan of Holland in the first round of the Masters' section of Tradewise Gibraltar Chess festival at the Caleta in Gibraltar.
The WHOS has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Riding on three back-to-back victories, Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta emerged as the best performing Indian as he finished seventh in the Al Ain Classic International chess tournament that concluded in Al Ain (UAE) on Saturday.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw talks to Nikita Puri about her book Mythbreaker.
'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.'
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Saturday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
'Vaccination is the only safe way to get immunity.'
'We are going ahead with the trials assuming what we have is the vaccine.' 'There is also a chance that what you have is not the vaccine. Then, you have to go back to the drawing board again.' 'So far, there has been no success in developing a good vaccine against coronaviruses.' 'That's why there are hundreds of trials going on at different stages in different parts of the world.'
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'Where did this fungus suddenly come from and get all over the country?'
'It will only get worse, definitely, for the next month and one-and-a-half months.'
A summary of sportspersons in the news on Sunday.
The IMD attributed the projection to a weakening of El Nio and the Indian Ocean Dipole turning positive.
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