The first fatality from COVID-19 was reported from the Washington state on February 26.
The Sri Lankan government on Sunday lifted the ban it had imposed on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram after declaring a nationwide public emergency and effecting a 36-hour curfew ahead of a planned anti-government rally over the worst economic crisis in the island nation.
What is aggravating the situation is that e-commerce firms are facing huge shortage of delivery personnel. They have not been able to bring back their staff to work, despite offering higher pay and Covid-related insurance packages.
The paramilitary force on Tuesday night had issued a statement and said that "almost all patients are in need of uninterrupted oxygen."
Flagging the 'severe crisis' over availability of medical oxygen in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and ensure it gets supplies and for the Centre to make available containers and trains to transport the life saving gas to the state.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned on Monday, hours after his supporters attacked anti-government protesters outside embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office, leaving at least 78 people injured and prompting authorities to impose a nationwide curfew and deploy army troops in the capital.
The oxygen shortage was inevitable to an extent given the tsunami of Covid cases, but the problem is the lack of even basic preparation by both the Centre and states, notes Shyamal Majumdar.
Retail sales of automobiles in India grew 8.31 per cent in August this year on the back of increase in registrations of vehicles across all major segments, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Thursday. As per data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), total vehicle retail sales in the country stood at 15,21,490 units last month as compared to 14,04,704 units in August 2021. Passenger vehicles (PV) retail sales stood at 2,74,448 units as compared to 2,57,672 units in the year-ago month, a growth of 6.51 per cent.
Reinvent and innovate will be the key mantra for the Indian pharma industry in the New Year as the 'pharmacy of the world' looks to move from volume to value leadership, amid emerging challenges of inflation and pricing pressures in the global markets. While R&D investment, market competitiveness, regulatory scrutiny, and domestic price regulations are expected to shape the growth of generics and injectable products, concerns such as price control and customs duties on medical equipment will continue to bother the healthcare industry in 2023. The industry believes that in view of India's G20 Presidency, digital health innovation, achieving universal health coverage, improving healthcare infrastructure and delivery will continue to be the key driving factors in 2023.
With cases hitting a new peak in several parts of the country, the demand for medical oxygen has increased as it is a critical component in the treatment of COVID-19-affected patients.
The Union health ministry on Friday said license has been given to five more manufacturers for production of Amphotericin-B, used in the treatment of black fungus, and they will start producing 1,11,000 vials of the drug per month from July.
Veda Krishnamurthy's sister died due to COVID-19, two weeks after her mother succumbed to the dreaded virus.
The government said the death certificates made no mention of 'death due to lack of oxygen' in any of the 22,915 patients that died due to the pandemic.
A hallmark of some new businesses today is that they seek to use the brute force of capital, combined with smart technology and operations, to create new needs that you didn't even know existed, the chairman of Aditya Birla group said in a blog post on the trends for the new year.
While there is a shortage of testing kits, manpower and capacities, India does not have other scalable testing options.
Bharat Biotech on Thursday said it plans to produce additional 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine 'Covaxin' at its subsidiary's Ankleshwar (Gujarat) based facility, taking the overall production volume of the vaccine to 1 billion (100 crore) dosages per annum.
The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that being a constitutionally elected government it is acting responsibly to alleviate the suffering of people due to COVID-19 by making every possible effort to augment the supply of Oxygen.
'With the June quarter GDP shrinking by nearly a quarter, there is an even greater economic imperative: Reduction of uncertainty,' observes Neelkanth Mishra.
Adar Poonawalla says it took a five-minute chat with his father Cyrus before making the decision to manufacture Covishield. The bet paid off, and handsomely. Serum Institute now has the capacity to make 4 billion doses of Covishield annually.
Ppolitical experts in Colombo said the ministers came under intense pressure from the public over the government's alleged "mishandling" of the economic crisis, triggered by the shortage in the foreign exchange reserve.
Shopping malls in Maharashtra on Tuesday decided to close down operations, after the government modified guidelines mandating them to operate with fully-vaccinated staff.
Growing for the third consecutive month, the country's exports rose marginally by 0.67 per cent year-on-year to $27.93 billion in February even as trade deficit widened to $12.62 billion, according to official data released on Monday.
Factories are shutting down owing to a shortage of labour and raw materials, and a lack of logistical support amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown against the coronavirus pandemic.
Auto majors, including Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai and Tata Motors, on Sunday reported high double-digit growth in their domestic passenger vehicle sales in July riding on stabilisation of macro-economic factors and better consumer sentiments. Similarly, Honda, Nissan, MG Motor and Skoda also reported healthy growth in their sales last month leveraging on improved market mood amid prevailing lower coronavirus infection rate, despite supply constraints of semi-conductors. The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India's (MSI) domestic sales increased by 39 per cent to 1,41,238 units last month as against 1,01,307 units in July 2020, the company said in a statement.
The supply shipment is being undertaken in cooperation with the Adani group and Linde company.
With India slowly but steadily morphing into a global pharmaceutical R&D hub, scientists have run into short supply.
According to the AIIMS director, there are 10-15 per cent of people who may witness severe infection and may need extra medicines like Remdesivir, oxygen or plasma. Less than five per cent of patients need to be operated on a ventilator, he informed.
'If people show laxity by not wearing masks or wearing it inappropriately or violate social distancing norms, and if law enforcement agencies do not penalise and ensure violations do not increase in quantum, then we are certainly in for a trouble. And, the next wave could be worse than the second wave situation'
"Under the CO-JEET" plan, personnel of the three wings of the armed forces -- the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy -- have been pressed into service to help restore oxygen supply chains, set up COVID beds and provide help to the civilian administration in its fight to control the pandemic," said the Lt General, whose post of deputy chief integrated defence staff (medical) comes under the Chief of Defence Staff.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday met families of four deceased farmers, who had allegedly faced shortage of fertilisers in Lalitpur, and charged that the fertiliser distribution system of Uttar Pradesh has failed due to collusion among black marketers, officials and leaders.
'It is frustrating when you have to say 'No', but you are helpless when something is not available.'
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that the US will allocate 75 per cent - nearly 1.9 crore of the first tranche of 2.5 crore doses - of unused COVID-19 vaccines from its stockpile through the UN-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing programme to countries in South and Southeast Asia as well as Africa.
'We are seeing 50% fewer cases now.' 'It is primarily due to the lockdown.'
This year saw no improvement in bilateral ties as India accused Pakistan of cross-border infiltration and re-activation of terror-launching pads near the LoC.
The latest hike is likely to be followed by another such move next month, said industry players. Before the latest hike, companies had initiated price hikes to the tune of 12-13 per cent in 2021 but they weren't able to fully cover the increase in costs.
'You could have an additional pool of 15,000-odd qualified and competent doctors.'
Thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets since April 9, as the government ran out of money for vital imports; prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed and there are acute shortages in fuel, medicines and electricity supply.
'This government did not have any plan for safety stocks of essential medicines.'
A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said the high court order of May 5 is a well calibrated, deliberated and judicious exercise of power".
India expects 2.16 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines between August and December, including the jabs that are currently in clinical trials, reports Sohini Das
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