India is not keen to 'bow down' to demands related to indemnity against legal liabilities in case any vaccine recipient develops severe adverse reactions post inoculation.
The court also said that the "frivolous contentions" by the petitioner objecting to the PM's photo and his "morale boosting message" on the vaccination certificate, was "not expected from a citizen of the country".
The aim of the mission is to accelerate the development of at least six vaccine candidates and ensure that they are licenced and introduced in market for emergency use at the earliest.
The government on Friday warned about the declining compliance to mask usage in the country amid concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and urged people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated to prevent surge in cases.
"We know that post the COVID-19 infection, immunity is only for a short duration of 3-6 months, after which the same person is vulnerable to getting reinfected. The reinfection will depend on the viral load to which the susceptible person is exposed to. We have seen some Chief Ministers and national leaders also getting infected a second time. So nobody is permanently immune," Prof. Murthy said.
As the largest producer of vaccines in the world, with 60 per cent of the global share, India is well-positioned to use its existing manufacturing capabilities to contribute to mass vaccine production and distribution needs for other countries in addition to meeting its domestic requirements, said Moody's.
While Mahipal's family is blaming the death on vaccination, the authorities cited an autopsy report to say that he suffered from a cardiac disease.
'The ICMR and Biological E Limited, Hyderabad, have developed highly purified antisera (raised in animals) for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19,' the apex health research body said on Thursday. The 'antisera' is yet to undergo human clinical trials to establish its safety and efficacy and Drugs Controller General of India would be approached soon in this regard, Dr Samiran Panda, the head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the ICMR said.
Vaccine inequity remains an issue in India, where less than 2 per cent of the population has received a Covid booster
'Rolling out the vaccine is not a major challenge in India.'
The two maps, above, show the change in Under-five Mortality Rate and the change in Maternal Mortality Ratio during the time period 1990 to 2013 across the world.
The vaccine induced robust binding and neutralising antibody responses which were comparable to those observed in the convalescent serum collected from patients who had recovered from COVID-19, according to the findings which have appeared on medRxiv, a preprint server.
'Better to prevent than to wait for evidence. Protection delayed can also mean protection denied'
According to sources, around 10 crore doses of the Sputnik V vaccine is likely to be imported for emergency use in the country in the next six to seven months.
Australia's medicines and medical devices regulator on Monday formally recognised India's Covaxin, a vaccine against the coronavirus as the country's border was reopened for the first time in nearly 20 months.
The vaccination can be held at workplaces that have around 100 eligible and willing beneficiaries.
Over 200 world leaders, including former presidents, prime ministers and ministers have backed a campaign urging the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations to help vaccinate the world's poorest from low-income economies against COVID-19 by paying two-thirds of an estimated $66 billion required.
Gennova has also got permission for phase-2 and 3 clinical trials for its lyophilised mRNA vaccine for injection from the subject expert committee advising the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation, reports Sohini Das.
Johnson revealed that the number of hospital patients has increased to nearly 27,000, almost a third higher than the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020.
Cautioning that the country is passing through a phase when there are festivals and potential gatherings, he said this is a critical phase as the virus can spread again.
The senior officials of the health ministry apprised the minister on various improvements that have been made to make the pan India dry run glitch free, such as number of telephone operators has been increased to answer every possible query from the teams on the ground conducting the dry run.
Arora, who is Director of INCLEN Trust, said it is not possible to predict any third wave at this time.
Pune's Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker by volume, is placing its bets on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate AZD1222 with CEO Adar Poonawalla stating he would start manufacturing at personal risk.
Experts emphasise on the need to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus using strategic and pragmatic approaches in villages as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and towns, which are reporting increased COVID-19 infections and deaths during the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
Maharashtra and Punjab, which are recording a surge in new COVID-19 cases, tightened curbs on Friday and the chief minister of the western state said lockdown is an option, as India added close to 40,000 cases in the biggest daily increase in nearly four months.
Bolstered by improved domestic demand, India's services sector expanded for the fourth consecutive month in January as business activities quickened and rising business optimism is set to sustain the growth momentum, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The seasonally-adjusted India Services Business Activity Index rose from 52.3 in December to 52.8 in January, pointing to a quicker expansion in output. The index was above the critical 50 mark that separates growth from contraction for the fourth month in a row during January.
The deceased include 12 policemen, one paramilitary and two civilians, a police official said.
Vaccine major Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has demonstrated an interim vaccine efficacy of 81 per cent in the Phase 3 clinical trials.
The states and Union territories were also urged not to store, reserve, conserve or create a buffer stock of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Union health ministry said in a statement, a day after the start of the second phase of India's inoculation drive in which the coverage has been expanded to include everyone above 60 and those over 45 with specified co-morbidities.
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.
Serum Institute already has two deals of 100 million each to supply the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Novavax vaccine to Gavi-Covax at $3 per dose.
The Union Health Ministry has said in response to a Right to Information application that it does not know where records related to agenda circulated in meetings of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 are held.
The WHO said the four current 'Variants of Concern' being monitored closely - Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta - are widespread and have been detected in all WHO regions.
India has purchased 500 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, one billion from the United States company Novavax and 100 million doses of the Sputnik V candidate from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, according to the US-based Duke University Global Health Innovation Center.
The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus. It is very different from the epidemic stage when the virus overwhelms a population.
The second dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers from February 13, the Centre said on Thursday, highlighting that 45 per cent of them have been inoculated so far.
Cricket South Africa's chief medical officer, Dr Shuaib Manjra, was quoted as saying that the players have been told to isolate themselves and will be tested for the deadly virus in case any symptoms show up.
The novel coronavirus has mutated before, and both companies say they've found that their vaccines worked against other variations of the virus.
The UK's medicines regulator on Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.
Vardhan noted that COVID-19 infection among those vaccinated would be very mild and not progress to an advanced stage.
