A group of public health experts, including doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences and members from the national taskforce on COVID-19, have said that mass, indiscriminate and incomplete vaccination can trigger emergence of mutant strains and recommended that there is no need to inoculate those who had documented coronavirus infection.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address at the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, invited the global manufacturers of vaccines to come and make vaccines in India, stressing that the country's "faith is to serve people".
In an open letter, Banerjee said the COVID warriors, including police, home guards, civil defence volunteers, correctional home and disaster management employees, will be administered the vaccine on a priority basis.
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
At 8 million a month, times two doses, it will take us 17 years to administer the vaccine to our 800 million adults. The rollout must speed up twenty times, asserts Naushad Forbes.
While Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is in trials among children already, Serum Institute of India will begin Novavax vaccine trials on children from July, whereas the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for adolescents in the United States; and Cadila Healthcare's ZyCoV-D has done trials on 12 year-olds and above already, reports Sohini Das.
Daters won't go on a date or have sex with someone who hasn't received the COVID vaccine.
Manchester United manager Ralf Rangnick said the club had to ensure its players were vaccinated following a COVID-19 outbreak that led to the postponement of their last two Premier League games.
During the meeting, scheduled to be held through video conference at 6 pm on Tuesday, the Department of Biotechnology will make a presentation and also coordinate with all the participants, sources added.
The vaccine would be first made available to the vulnerable population and eventually, it would be available in the private market for all.
"Personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn't want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel," Djokovic said in a live Facebook chat with several fellow Serbian athletes.
The Pfizer vaccine has already been approved for the public in the United Kingdom and, Canada.
States and Union Territories would aggregate the demand of private hospitals for COVID-19 vaccines based on which the Centre will facilitate supply to these governments for timely and equitable distribution to smaller and remoter private healthcare facilities, according to the revised guidelines issued.
Shopping malls in Maharashtra on Tuesday decided to close down operations, after the government modified guidelines mandating them to operate with fully-vaccinated staff.
The Maharashtra government on Saturday evening announced suspension of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the state till Monday owing to problems in the Co-Win app.
This new trial, a single-blind, randomised Phase II trial, will enrol 300 volunteers, with up to 240 of these volunteers receiving the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine and the remainder a control meningitis vaccine, which has been shown to be safe in children but is expected to produce similar reactions, such as a sore arm.
The IOA was supposed to provide details of the country's vaccinated athletes to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by May 27 and had asked the national federations to share the information.
The study, which was conducted on more than 100 healthcare workers at three centres in India including Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, found that the B.1.617.2 Delta variant not only dominates vaccine-breakthrough infections with higher respiratory viral loads compared to non-Delta infections (Ct value of 16.5 versus 19) but also generates greater transmission among the fully vaccinated HCWs.
The coronavirus pandemic has taught that viruses cannot be taken lightly, and the unpredictability in emerging scenarios of health have to be respected and addressed, Paul noted.
Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava said the purpose of the COVID vaccine drive would be to break the chain of viral transmission.
The Wold Health Organisation has granted approval on June 1 to China's second COVID-19 vaccine, Sinovac, which was expected to strengthen China's vaccine diplomacy.
A notice issued to the foreign journalists on Wednesday said they can get the Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine, developed by Sinopharm's China National Biotec Group. Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine has been granted conditional market approval by China's National Medical Products Administration.
With the administration of 23,46,176 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, the cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered has exceeded 90.79 crore as per provisional reports till 7 am.
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The Union Health Ministry on Friday asked all states and union territories to initiate vaccination of frontline workers against COVID-19 from the first week of February.
As India holds its breath for the Covid vaccination to be begin, Sudhir Bisht provides a quick checklist of what you must know about the vaccines that will be administered to citizens.
Booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines are the easiest barrier that must be created immediately against Omicron, according to eminent virologist Dr T Jacob John, who noted that it may not seed the third wave of the pandemic, but breakthrough infections may be common due to the new variant.
The first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for seven days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunisation programme within the country, the Union health ministry said.
'The immune protection may well wane somewhat, and that's what we have to monitor.' 'Should it wane to the point where vaccinated individuals are getting severe disease, then we really will need to give them booster shots and that'll apply regardless of what vaccine they've got the first time.'
The Centre on Saturday directed the states and UTs that no fresh registrations of healthcare and frontline workers will be allowed since some ineligible beneficiaries were getting their names enlisted for vaccination against COVID-19, under this category, in violation of rules.
Serum Institute of India announced a price of Rs 400 per dose for its COVID-19 vaccine 'Covishield' for state governments and Rs 600 per dose for private hospitals.
The Centre wrote to all states and union territories on Thursday and asked them to make necessary arrangements for this, the Union Health Ministry said.
'A lot of people are shying away from taking the vaccination.' 'It's high time we started a trust campaign for the vaccination so that those who are suspicious of the vaccine would realise it is completely safe.'
Under flak from the opposition for 'diverting' Covid vaccines to private hospitals to make a profit, the Punjab government on Friday asked them to return all stock meant for the 18-44 age group.
The rapid rise of COVID-19 cases in India in the past few weeks has forced the Board of Control for Cricket in India to consider vaccinating players ahead of IPL 2021.
As India prepares to launch its vaccine drive on January 16, here is a look at the options:
As the rural areas account for more than 40% of the country's population, they need to receive at least 41.7 per cent of the doses to make vaccine administration more equitable, reports Ishaan Gera.
The COVID-19 vaccine of Biological-E is currently undergoing phase-3 clinical trial after showing promising results in phase 1 and 2 trials.
'The state government is putting Maharashtrians in danger by letting people escape institutional quarantine mandate for the sake of their personal vasuli'
Three temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of the Serum Institute gates shortly before 5 am and left for Pune airport, from where the vaccines will be flown across India.
