Maharashtra has emerged as the leader in the COVID-19 vaccination drive as it has administered vaccine doses to 43,42,646 people, an official said on Thursday.
A June 11 survey by cLocalCircles across 299 districts puts overall vaccine hesitancy levels at 18 per cent, with 11 per cent of the respondents saying they were not convinced if the currently available vaccines would protect them against the new strains; and 5 per cent said they do not plan to take the vaccine at all.
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE have said that their vaccine candidate has been found to be more than 90 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19.
Efforts are being ramped up for massive production of vaccines and make them available in the shortest possible time, a top government official said on Wednesday, stressing that India currently has a promising pipeline of four-five Covid-19 vaccine candidates, while three have already been approved for emergency use.
Addressing a press briefing, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said Zydus Cadila, Sputnik V, Biological E and Gennova are other vaccines also in the pipeline which are in advanced clinical trials in India.
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According to the statement, a significant number of foreign nationals are living in India, especially in large metropolitan areas. In these areas, the potential of spread of COVID-19 is high due to higher population density. To counter any possibility of such occurrence, it is important to vaccinate all eligible persons.
The Pune-based vaccine major has entered into a collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine.
Trump had said that he worked on removing a large number of bureaucratic obstacles to fast-track development and approval of a vaccine.
Pfizer sought to participate in the Subject Expert Committee consultations towards an emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine. However, the company representatives have been unable to participate in the meetings because of extremely short notices of a few hours or less and time-zone limitations.
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Union Health Secretary said that priority groups have been decided who are vulnerable to mortality.
The protection gained after being fully vaccinated with both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines against Covid-19 wanes over time, a new UK study reported on Wednesday.
This means there are now four promising vaccines on the horizon after Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik and Moderna already reporting good preliminary data from Phase 3 trials.
The Indian State has low operational capabilities. Individuals will have concerns about material that flows through the government, on questions of purity, perfection of the cold chain, and correctness of procedures at the frontline. Even if a government programme is able to solve all these problems, it will be limited in scale-up. The passion, management capabilities, and response to local conditions, which will be found with tens of thousands of ground-level initiatives, Individuals will have concerns about material that flows through the government, on questions of purity, perfection of the cold chain, and correctness of procedures. Even if a government programme is able to solve all these problems, it will be limited in scale-up, argues Ajay Shah.
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.
Earlier, it was reported that the judges of the apex court would get the option to choose between Covaxin or Covishield vaccines. Later, the Union health ministry, in a clarification, said the judges have not been given any such option to choose between both the vaccines, adding that it will be conducted entirely through Co-Win system.
Over the last four days, the Indian arm of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech have applied to the Drugs Controller General of India seeking emergency use authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccines.
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.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was administered the first dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine at Zonal Hospital Dharamsala on Saturday morning.
Hundreds of farmers, chiefly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, continue to encamp Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur border points of Delhi despite "a few" of them being removed after testing positive for COVID-19 and some symptomatic protesters undergoing medication.
Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccination while Buldhana has only one day's vaccine doses left in stock, said Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope.
While it is not clear whether the volunteer had received the vaccine or a placebo shot during the trial, Anvisa has refused to reveal any more information citing reasons of medical privacy, CNN reported.
Covid is growing milder with time but an occasional surge in cases is expected because the virus that causes it is now endemic and constantly evolving, say scientists while assuring that there is no cause for concern.
The National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 will collect systematic data on clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, the clinical course of COVID-19, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients.
The researchers, working in an 'unprecedented' vaccine development effort to prevent COVID-19, said they have started screening healthy volunteers (aged 18-55) from Friday for their upcoming trial in the Thames Valley Region of England.
Out of these 148 athletes, 17 have got both the doses and 131 have received their first shot.
The trial is being conducted in three phases by segregating children into categories according to their age. The first trial was started in the age group of 12 to 18 years followed by the age group of 6 to 12. Trials for children between the ages of and 2-6 years are currently undergoing trials.
The Mumbai civic body on Tuesday started the city's first drive-in vaccination centre where specially-abled people and senior citizens will not have to stand in a queue and they will be administered the Covid-19 vaccine doses in their own vehicles, officials said.
Vardhan stated the government is taking full precautions in human trials of vaccines and the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 under the chairmanship of Dr V K Paul, member-health, NITI Aayog, is drawing up a detailed strategy on how to immunize the majority of the population.
The world is learning about a side effect of the COVID vaccine called Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, he said.
According to The New York Times, this move means that many highly vulnerable people will begin receiving the vaccine within days. It further called the authorisation by the FDA as a 'historic turning point' as the US death toll from the Wuhan-originated virus nears 300,000.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that the central government will provide free coronavirus vaccine to states will help ensuring quick rollout of vaccine, uniformity of procurement prices and resuming normal economic activities at the earliest, India Inc said on Monday. Industry chamber PHDCCI said that the increased role of the central government in the vaccination procurement process would help make vaccination drives further effective and maximise the supply in the country in relatively less time. "This would be a crucial step in making the country COVID free sooner than later," it said.
Hiraba, who is over 95 years old, lives with the PM's younger brother Pankaj Modi at Raysan village near Gandhinagar city.
Serum Institute of India plans to make 300 million doses of AZD1222 by December, and will begin phase-2 trials soon. It has also tied up with Novavax for development and commercialisation of its candidate.
Protesting farmer leaders in the vulnerable age group Monday said they are not afraid of coronavirus and won't take vaccine jabs, even as the second phase of vaccination drive got underway to inoculate senior citizens and those above 45 with underlying medical conditions.
A study by AIIMS-Delhi and ICMR found no link between COVID-19 vaccination and sudden cardiac arrests in young individuals, citing lifestyle factors as more prominent causes.
"India expands its vaccine basket! Johnson and Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is given approval for Emergency Use in India. Now India has 5 EUA vaccines. This will further boost our nation's collective fight against COVID-19," tweeted the minister.
The United States took 101 days to administer 13 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine, while China took 109 days to cross the same number.
Facts, they say, don't lie. Nor do figures. R Ramakumar, professor at Mumbai's Tata Institute of Social Sciences, demolishes the Government of India's vaccination claims.
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