health

  Amid a global race to find a Covid vaccine, the Prime Minister on Saturday visited the county's top vaccine hubs. New Delhi:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold an all-party meeting on Friday morning to discuss the coronavirus situation in the country, sources said. This is the second all-party meeting called by the government on coronavirus, which has affected over 94 lakh people across India, since the beginning of the pandemic.  Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi are likely to attend the meeting, sources said, adding that the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry has reached out to floor leaders of all the parties.  While India has logged the second-highest number of cases in the world after the United States, it is one of the countries with the lowest deaths per million population globally, the Health Ministry said this morning.  More  than 88 ...

  Chennai-based participant also sends legal notice to ICMR, DCGI, AstraZeneca & Oxford University to stop testing, manufacturing & distributing vaccine. New Delhi:  A Chennai resident, who was a participant in trials for the Covid-19 vaccine being manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, has allegedly suffered serious neurological and psychological symptoms after taking the experimental shots. A law firm has on his behalf sent a legal notice to SII seeking compensation of Rs 5 crore. The vaccine, Covishield, is being developed by the University of Oxford and drugmaker AstraZeneca. SII has a tie-up with Swedish-British pharma giant for the manufacturing of a billion doses. Covishield is among the frontrunners in the race to develop an effective vaccine against Covid-19. The legal notice, copy of which has been accessed by ThePrint, states that the participant, who is around 40 years old, “must be compensated, in the least, for all the sufferings that he...

  Vaccines by Pfizer and BioNtech, as well as Moderna and AstraZeneca have shown promising results in large clinical trials, but there is no question of "cutting corners", said Thomas Cueni. Geneva:  Ten COVID-19 vaccines could be available by the middle of next year if they win regulatory approval, but their inventors need patent protection, the head of the global pharmaceutical industry group said on Friday. Vaccines by Pfizer and BioNtech, as well as Moderna and AstraZeneca have shown promising results in large clinical trials, but there is no question of "cutting corners", said Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA). "So far 3 we have 3 out of 3 were hits. I would expect that we will see something similar with Johnson & Johnson, I would expect that we would see similar positive results with Novavax, and many others, Sanofi Pasteur, GSK are in there, Merck," he said. ...

  The WHO has been accused by the Trump administration of being 'China-centric', allegations it has repeatedly denied China is pushing a narrative via state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in the central city of Wuhan GENEVA  : The  World Health Organizatio n's top emergency expert said on Friday it would be "highly speculative" for the WHO to say the  coronavirus  did not emerge in China, where it was first identified in a food market in December last year. China is pushing a narrative via state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in the central city of Wuhan, citing the presence of coronavirus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe last year. "I think it's highly speculative for us to say that the disease did not emerge in China," Mike Ryan said at a virtual briefing in Geneva after being asked if COVID-19 could have first emerged outsi...

  “If a vaccine is available, we can administer it to all healthcare workers in just three days...” Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday said Delhi has sufficient infrastructure and equipment to vaccinate its entire population in a few weeks once a COVID-19 vaccine is available. “There is no need to worry about storage of vaccines. We have a large number of health care facilities, such as mohalla clinics, poly clinics, and hospitals etc, where a COVID-19 vaccine can be administered to people,” Jain told reporters. “Once a vaccine is available, we can vaccinate the entire population of Delhi in a few weeks,” the minister said. Mr. Jain also said Delhi should be given priority during the distribution of the vaccine as it is the national capital. A three-storeyed building on the premises of Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital has also been identified for storage of COVID-19 vaccines. On Thursday, Delhi’s Immunization Officer Suresh Seth had said the national capital is geared up...

  COVID-19 Vaccine Development: The visit, PM Modi's office said, was meant to help him get a "first-hand perspective of the preparations, challenges and roadmap in India's endeavour to vaccinate its citizens". New Delhi:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit India's top vaccine hubs today to personally review the development of coronavirus vaccine and the manufacturing process. The visit, PM Modi's office said, was meant to help him get a "first-hand perspective of the preparations, challenges and roadmap in India's endeavour to vaccinate its citizens". PM Modi began his three-city vaccine tour with a visit to pharma major Zydus Cadila's plant in Gujarat. Wearing a PPE kit, PM Modi reviewed the vaccine development process at the Zydus Cadila research centre in Changodar industrial area, over 20 km from Ahmedabad. The drug maker has announced that the first phase of clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, has been comple...

  Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has ordered a probe into the incident, news agency ANI reported. New Delhi:  Five patients have died after a fire broke out in the ICU of a designated COVID-19 hospital in Gujarat's Rajkot in the early hours of Friday. Thirty other coronavirus patients being treated at the hospital were rescued, the reports added. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has ordered a probe into the incident, news agency ANI reported. The fire broke out in the ICU of Uday Shivanand Hospital in Mavdi area around 1 am on Friday. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. "We rushed to the spot and rescued 30 patients after a call informing about the fire was received. Three patients died inside the ICU," a fire brigade official was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. The rescued patients have been shifted to other COVID-19 hospitals, he added. In August, eight COVID-19 patients were killed after a fire broke out on the top floor of a four-storey private hospital in Ah...

  From Ahmedabad, Modi is expected to fly to Pune where he will review the status of the vaccine, including its launch, production and distribution mechanisms. With preparations for vaccine development and distribution reaching an advanced stage in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will embark on a three-city tour to take stock of the Covid-19 vaccine development work. According to reports, the visit will start from Zydus Biotech Park on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Modi is expected to arrive at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport around 9am. From there, he will head towards Changodar in a helicopter. Zydus Cadila’s Vaccine Technology Centre is located at Changodar Park where the pharma company is developing its Covid-19 vaccine candidate ZyCoV-D. From Ahmedabad, Modi is expected to fly to Pune where he will review the status of the vaccine, including its launch, production and distribution mechanisms. “We have received confirmation about PM Modi’s visit to the Serum Inst...

  The British drugmaker said it will have as many as 200 million doses by the end of 2020 - around four times as many as US competitor Pfizer. Seven hundred million doses could be ready globally as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2021. London:  AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine could be around 90% effective, giving the world another weapon to fight the global pandemic and potentially cheaper to make, easier to distribute and faster to scale-up than rivals.  The combined analysis  from both dosing regimens resulted in an average efficacy of 70%. The British drugmaker said it will have as many as 200 million doses by the end of 2020 - around four times as many as US competitor Pfizer. Seven hundred million doses could be ready globally as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2021. The vaccine was 90%  effective in preventing COVID-19 when it was administered as a half dose followed by a full dose at least a month later, according to data f...

  On Monday morning pharma giant AstraZeneca, who developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford, said it could be around 90 per cent effective over two doses. New Delhi:  A minimum of 100 million doses of Covishield - a coronavirus vaccine that on Monday morning was said to be  90 per cent effective under certain conditions  - will be available by January and hundreds of million could be ready by the end of February, Adar Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India told NDTV on Monday. A single dose (two are recommended at this stage) will cost up to ₹ 1,000 if purchased from the pharmacy, but the government will buy 90 per cent of the supply at ₹ 250 per dose, he explained. Mr Poonawalla, whose company has an agreement with the government to mass-manufacture the vaccine, said around 40 million doses had already been produced. "It will be another two-three months for the vaccine to be available in India. By January we will have 100 million do...

  Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours of approval' by the US Food and Drug Administration,' Moncef Slaoui told CNN Meanwhile, Pfizer applied to US health regulators on Friday for emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine The United States hopes to begin a sweeping program of Covid vaccinations in early December, the head of the government coronavirus vaccine effort said Sunday. "Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours of approval" by the US Food and Drug Administration, Moncef Slaoui told CNN. "So I expect maybe on Day Two of the approval, on the 11th or the 12th of December." FDA vaccine advisors reportedly will meet December 8 to 10 to discuss approving vaccines which Pfizer and Moderna say are at least 95 percent effective. Two leading vaccine candidates -- one by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech and another by US firm Moderna -- have shown to be 95 percent...

  Bharat Biotech is developing Covaxin in collaboration with ICMR - National Institute of Virology (NIV) and in its Phase III, it is conducting its largest clinical trial of a Covid-vaccine in India with 26,000 volunteers in 25 centres. India is waiting anxiously for Covaxin, the indigenously made Covid-19 vaccine, which started with its third phase trials in Odisha. As the Centre prepares for a mega drive, the vaccine maker recently reported to the Drug Controller General of India about a participant developing an adverse reaction during initial stages. The volunteer was hospitalised due to an adverse reaction. The company spokesperson, however, clarified that the health issue developed by the participant was not due to the vaccine dose administered. Bharat Biotech, the Covaxin vaccine maker in an email response to IE, said the adverse reaction with the participant happened during its first trial with the vaccine that was conducted in August 2020. The participant suffered from vir...

  US biotech company Moderna had said that early data shows that their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 94.5 % effective. Days after US biotech company Moderna said that early data shows that their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 94.5 percent effective, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel said that they will charge the government between $25 and $37 per dose of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, depending on the amount ordered, Reuters reported. Talking about the deal with the European Commission, an EU official said that they wanted to reach a deal with Moderna for the supply of millions of doses of its vaccine for a price below $25 per dose. Bancel said that nothing has been finalised yet, but the deal with the EU commission is almost done. “We want to deliver to Europe and are in constructive talks,” Bancel added. The biotech company released an interim analysis on Monday, which said that based on a study of 95 patients with confirmed COVID-19 infections, the vaccine c...

  Two recently published studies from Kansas State University researchers and collaborators have led to two important findings related to the COVID-19 pandemic: Domestic cats can be asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2, but pigs are unlikely to be significant carriers of the virus. SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. There are about 95 million house cats in the U.S. and about 60 million to 100 million feral cats, Richt said. Richt is the senior author on the two recent collaborative publications in the journal  Emerging Microbes & Infections : "SARS-CoV-2 infection, disease and transmission in domestic cats" and "Susceptibility of swine cells and domestic pigs to SARS-CoV-2." Through their in-depth study at the K-State Biosecurity Research Institute, or BRI, at Pat Roberts Hall, the researchers studied susceptibility to infection, disease and transmission in domestic cats. They found that domestic cats may not have obvious clinical signs of SA...

  01 /6 5 false myths about COVID-19 vaccines to avoid With the increase in the numbers of coronavirus cases, people have not only entered a state of panic and confusion, but are also falling victim to myths and misconceptions related to COVID-19. While scientists and medical professionals are working hard to develop a clinically approved vaccine to treat patients and contain the spread of the virus, people are struggling to keep the vaccine-related mistruths at bay. That being said, to help you through this, here are 5 false myths about COVID-19 vaccines to break away from. 02 /6 There'll be a vaccine by the end of 2020 for everyone Following the outbreak of the coronavirus, scientists and medical professionals are working tirelessly to get their hands on a possible cure or a clinically approved vaccine. While there has been a considerable level of success, it is difficult to say that a vaccine will be available to everyone by the end of 2020. 03 /6 A COVID-19 vaccine won't be...