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.
With the maximum dose gap of four months for Covishield, a large part of the population would not even be eligible for the second dose by the end of this year, report Ruchika Chitravanshi and Ishaan Gera.
The development comes after requests for indemnity and exemption from bridging trials have been made by Pfizer and Moderna to the Indian government.
Though there is no official word, the sources said the government is not ready to give in to the indemnity demands of the US drug manufacturers against liabilities in case of adverse effects.
Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, has a licence to produce the shot and has already manufactured close to 50 million doses.
Choubey said till February 4 total 81 AEFIs, which is 0.096 per cent of the total beneficiaries who have been administered Covaxin, have been reported.
The Drugs Control General of India has permitted emergency use of Covid vaccine Sputnik V with certain conditions, clearing the way for a third vaccine in addition to Covishield and Covaxin. Besides, the government on Tuesday also fast-tracked emergency approval for other jabs. Here is what the vaccines are all about:
Sputnik V is already approved in India and Sinovac is unlikely to come in as it does not meet the criteria.
According to officials, an additional dose of vaccine is different from a booster dose.
They include a woman who came from Nigeria along with her two daughters to meet her brother in adjoining Pimpri Chinchwad area, the official said.
Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise 'unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day'.
The Union government on Friday said the scientific community is looking at all aspects of administering a booster dose of Covid vaccine while asserting that providing primary vaccination coverage to the maximum possible population remains the foremost goal.
The UK government is under increasing pressure on Monday to review its COVID-19 vaccine protocol in place for travellers from India, after its updated rules effective from next month failed to recognise Indian vaccines under an expanded list of countries.
This is Kareena's first appearance after she gave birth to her second son on February 21.
The Serum Institute of India has stockpiled 40 mn-50 mn doses and is adding more every week. Most of these will come to India.
Dominic Xavier ponders the Vaccine Dilemma: Should he take the shot or not?
"Corona vaccine is the need of the country. You all should also raise your voice for it. Everyone has the right to a safe life," he said in a tweet.
Heads of fire departments of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) are part of the joint probe team.
Currently, Covishield and other COVID vaccines are approved for people above the age of 18 years.
'WHO issued an emergency use listing for Covovax, expanding the basket of WHO-validated vaccines against COVID-19. The vaccine is produced by the Serum Institute of India under licence from Novavax,' the world health body said in a tweet on Friday.
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.
The Kerala high court on Friday set aside its earlier order that directed the Union government to allow eligible people take the second Covishield dose after a four week gap, instead of the present mandatory 84 days.
Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccination while Buldhana has only one day's vaccine doses left in stock, said Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope.
This will be Modi's first interaction with chief ministers following the recent approval of two coronavirus vaccines for restricted emergency use by India's drug regulator.
In its weekly bulletin of December 27, released on Monday, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said global outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 are increasingly shifting from Delta to Omicron.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
Two weeks after the vaccination programme started, about 37 per cent of the targeted 10 million healthcare professionals had received the first shot. This slow rate may prompt the government to allow vaccines in the private market sooner, to use up the doses before they expire, Sohini Das reports.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi spoke over phone on Monday during which they took stock of India-UK trade and defence talks, opening up of international travel between the two countries and climate action targets in the lead up to the COP26 summit, Downing Street said.
The age cap for the booster shot came at a time when another highly transmissible XE variant of the coronavirus is being reported.
India's ace shooter Manu Bhaker on Tuesday received her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a government hospital in Jhajjar, Haryana, three months before the Tokyo Olympics where she will enter as one of India's brightest medal hopes.
The gap between second dose of COVID-19 vaccine and the third, which is being called a 'precaution dose,' is likely to be nine to 12 months, official sources said on Sunday.
Delhi on Monday sounded an alert of its depleting vaccine stock, with Health Minister Satyendar Jain saying that the national capital has only one day's Covaxin jabs left and its Covishield doses will last for just three to four days.
This will be an upfront payment for the vaccine doses that these two companies will supply to the government.
Kejriwal's announcement came after Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia earlier this week claimed that Covaxin manufacturer Bharat Biotech has refused to provide additional doses to the national capital.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has granted restricted emergency use authorisation to two new vaccines and a drug for COVID-19, taking the number of preventives and treatments available in India to 12.
The inoculation drive will start at 10.30 am at 150 centers across the state on Saturday along with the rest of the country, Madhya Pradesh Health Minister Dr Prabhuram Choudhary said.
These vaccines are Sputnik V vaccine (in collaboration with Dr Reddy's), Johnson & Johnson vaccine (in collaboration with Biological E), Novavax vaccine (in collaboration with Serum India), Zydus Cadila's vaccine, and Bharat Biotech's Intranasal Vaccine.
With variants cropping up at regular intervals, Jha acknowledged that they are a concern as a very rapid evolution of this virus is being seen over the time.
SII would be scaling up its AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine manufacturing capacity to 200 million doses a month from 100 million a month now, reports Sohini Das.
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