Tag: jab

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Bollywood Lite Blogs

Madhuri urges to be safe

Earlier this month, the actress reacted to the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has badly affected India in its ongoing second wave…reports Asian Lite News.

Taking vaccines has become a duty of a responsible citizen. Actress Madhuri Dixit Nene has urged everyone to get vaccinated, adding that she has received her second jab of the Covid vaccine.

“Got my second jab today. I urge everyone to get vaccinated as soon as it’s available to you. #StayHomeStaySafe,” Madhuri wrote as caption with a picture on Instagram she posted on Monday night, where she is seen sitting on a chair and getting the second dose.

Earlier this month, the actress reacted to the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has badly affected India in its ongoing second wave.

On the professional front, she is set to make her digital debut in the series “Finding Anamika”. In the show, Madhuri plays a superstar who goes missing. The show has been directed by Karishma Kohli and Bejoy Nambiar.

Hina contracts Covid-19

Actress Hina Khan has tested positive for Covid. This news comes right after the death of her father, who passed away last week, after a heart attack.

“In these extremely difficult and challenging times for me and my family, I have tested positive for COVID-19. Following the guidance of my doctors, I have home quarantined myself and taking all necessary precautions. Requesting everyone who came in contact with me to get themselves tested. All I need is your prayers. Be safe and take care,” Hina wrote on Instagram on Monday night.

Her peers in the industry posted messages for Hina, wishing her to get well soon.

Actress Rashami Desai wrote: “Plz take care and sending you lots of love. Stay strong,” while Mouni Roy posted: “Wishing you speedy recovery. And sending lots of love. Take care my love.”

Hina’s father passed away last week and the actress had earlier taken to social media to announce that she would be taking a break from social media.

“My beloved father Aslam Khan left for heavenly abode on the 20th of April, 2021. I am grateful to each one of you for checking in on me and my family during these tough times. While me & my family are mourning the loss, my social media accounts will be handled by my team for upcoming work commitments. Thank you for your support & love. HINA KHAN,” she had written earlier.

Also Read-Madhuri’s dance with a candle to spread positivity

Read More-Madhuri Remembers Rishi Kapoor

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Bollywood COVID-19 Lite Blogs

Adnan Sami takes first jab

Stars always engage in good activities that naturally inspire fans or audiences. Adnan Sami on Sunday took the Covid-19 vaccine. The singer took to social media to encourage netizens to get the jab, saying it is the only way to secure oneself amid the ongoing second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic…reports Asian Lite News.

Sharing a photograph of his vaccination process on Instagram, the singer wrote: “The only way we can secure ourselves from this deadly pandemic is by getting ourselves VACCINATED…I got myself vaccinated. It’s a very secured feeling… Go & DO IT!! Do NOT listen to wrong stories about the vaccine. All vaccines are good for protection.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/COFdEEXBvvz/?igshid=zavvj8dexl3o

Suggesting netizens to not pay heed to reports about the side effects of the vaccine, the singer further wrote: “Side effects? Even an age old tested ‘aspirin’ can have side effects but you don’t read about it because it’s no longer ‘news worthy’!! Some people are allergic to ‘mushrooms’… There will always be some people out there reacting adversely to something- we’re all different! You hear about the vaccines because it’s a hot topic right now, so do not let that deter you from doing the right thing!
“Planes & cars crash, but will you stop flying or driving? Besides, simply put, the vaccine is our protection against death!! Choose LIFE!” he further suggested.

Also Read-Health Workers Get First Covid Jabs In Italy

Read More-Trudeau gets first dose of AstraZeneca jab

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-Top News COVID-19 World News

WHO chief condemns global vax divide

“There remains a shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus…reports Asian Lite News

The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised what it describes as a “shocking imbalance” in the distribution of coronavirus vaccines between rich and poor countries.

“There remains a shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Friday, the BBC reported.

The group’s chief said a target of seeing vaccination programmes under way in every country by Saturday would be missed.

The WHO has long called for fairer distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

It is leading the Covax scheme which is designed to get jabs to poorer nations.

So far, more than 38 million doses have been delivered to around 100 countries under the scheme.

Zulema Riquelme, a 46-year-old nursing technician, receives a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Metropolitan Hospital in Santiago, Chile

Covax hopes to deliver more than two billion doses to people in 190 countries in less than a year. In particular, it wants to ensure that 92 poorer countries will receive access to vaccines at the same time as wealthier countries.

“On average in high-income countries, almost one in four people have received a Covid-19 vaccine. In low-income countries, it’s one in more than 500,” he said.

Also read:WHO backed Covid origin report unveiled

The Covax scheme had been expected to distribute at least 100 million doses worldwide by the end of March, but only 38 million jabs have been delivered so far.

“We hope to be able to catch up during April and May,” Tedros said.

A medical worker prepares a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Istanbul, Turkey

He also criticised countries that have sought their own vaccine deals outside of the Covax scheme. “Some countries and companies plan to do their own bilateral vaccine donations, bypassing Covax for their own political or commercial reasons,” Tedros said.

“These bilateral arrangements run the risk of fanning the flames of vaccine inequity,” he added. “Scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism.”

Earlier this year, Tedros warned that the world was facing a “catastrophic moral failure” over vaccine inequality. He said a “me-first” approach would be self-defeating because it would encourage hoarding and prolong the pandemic.

Also read:WHO lashes out at Europe’s slow vax rollout

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-Top News COVID-19

‘Moderna more troublesome than Pfizer’

The study, published in the journal JAMA, analysed reports collected via a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programme called v-safe that tracks side effects in vaccine recipients….reports Asian Lite News

In a first, a new study has pointed out that those taking the Moderna vaccine have reported more side effects than people who get the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs.

The study, published in the journal JAMA, analysed reports collected via a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programme called v-safe that tracks side effects in vaccine recipients.

A total of 3,643,918 people were enrolled in v-safe and completed at least one health survey within seven days following their first vaccine dose before February 21, and 1,920,872 v-safe participants reported receiving a second vaccine dose and completed at least one daily health survey within seven days following the second dose.

Nearly 70 per cent of those said they had some kind of injection site reaction, like pain or swelling, and half had generalised reaction like fatigue or chills.

“A greater percentage of participants who received the Moderna vaccine, compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, reported reactogenicity; this pattern was more pronounced after the second dose,” the researchers noted.

Also read:CDC reveals Pfizer, Moderna jabs effective in real world

Reactogenicity refers to a subset of reactions that occur soon after vaccination.

People who got a Moderna shot were more likely to have a side effect — 73 per cent had an injection site reaction, compared with 65 per cent of people who had a Pfizer/BioNTech dose.

Nearly 51 per cent of Moderna recipients had full-body symptoms, compared with 48 per cent of people who got the Pfizer/BioNTech shot.

The gap widened after the second dose.

Almost 82 per cent of people getting their second Moderna shot had injection site pain versus just under 69 per cent of people with Pfizer/BioNTech, reports The Verge.

“Overall, 74 per cent of people said they had general reactions after their Moderna shot, compared with 64 per cent of people getting Pfizer/BioNTech,” the report said on Tuesday.

Zulema Riquelme, a 46-year-old nursing technician, receives a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Metropolitan Hospital in Santiago, Chile

People over 65 were also less likely to have side effects than people under 65, regardless of which vaccine they received.

“Data from millions of v-safe participants indicate that injection site pain is common after both the first and second doses of either mRNA-based vaccine,” the study noted.

Systemic reactions, including fatigue, headache, myalgia, chills, fever, and joint pain, occurred in participants after the first dose, although they were more frequently reported after the second dose among both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine recipients.

Also read:CDC reveals Pfizer, Moderna jabs effective in real world

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-Top News Asia News

Nepal to inoculate refugees

The refugeesfrom the Jhapa district were inocluated as part of the second phase of that rollout…reports Asian Lite News

Nepal has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to provide Covid-19 jabs to refugees through its national vaccination rollout.

According to the UN refugee agency in Kathmandu, Nepal started to inoculate the Covid vaccine to the Bhutanese refugees living in eastern part of the country from March 7.

The refugees at the settlement in the Jhapa district were vaccinated as part of the second phase of that rollout, which started on 7 March and targets people over the age of 65.

Nepal started receiving Bhutanese refugees mostly Nepali speaking Bhutanese from the 1990s and over 100,800 have crossed the border via India and started seeking asylum in eastern Nepal. After Bhutan refused to take them back, the UN refugee agency and some western countries started taking them under the third country settlement programme.

Under this plan that started from 2007, 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have resettled in various western counties like the USA, Australia, Canada and others and now, there are around 18,000 refugees living in Nepal. Now they have stopped taking the Bhutanese refugees as resettlement reaches its end in 2016.

The country kicked off its vaccination campaign on 27 January after the Indian government donated one million doses of Covishield, the India-produced version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. In the first phase, frontline health workers, sanitation workers, hygiene workers and security officials were vaccinated.

Local authorities, refugee leaders and security officials set up a temporary vaccination centre at the refugee settlement and as of 24 March, some 668 refugees above the age of 65 had received vaccinations against the virus across the country, according to the UN agency for refugees.

Also read:Nepal relaxes curbs on Tourism

More refugees will be enrolled in the vaccination programme as the government receives additional supplies of vaccines, the agency said in a statement.

Nepal hosts nearly mostly Tibetans and Bhutanese refugees with arrival date in 1959 and in the early 1990s respectively.

Since the onset of the pandemic, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has been working closely with other UN agencies and government authorities to advocate for the inclusion of refugees in Covid-19 preparedness and response plans.

“The Government of Nepal has shown exemplary leadership for public health responses by including refugees in the national vaccination plans and rollout,” said Carolin Spannuth Verma, UNHCR’s Representative in Nepal.

To date, Nepal has reported 276,750 confirmed Covid cases and 3,027 deaths.

“The risk of Covid-19 is the same for all. It doesn’t matter if you are a refugee or not,” said Shrawan Kumar Timilsina, the Chief District Officer of Jhapa, in eastern Nepal where the country’s two refugee settlements are located. “Protecting the life of all people is our priority.”

Bhakti Prasad Baral, 83, fled Bhutan in 1992 and is now living in Beldangi settlement in Jhapa. He said that he felt “lucky” to get the vaccine.

“It was really difficult to endure what was going on because of the virus,” said the octogenarian, who works as a Hindu priest in his community. “I have no words to thank the Government of Nepal for paying attention to older persons like us.”

Also read:800K Chinese vaccine doses reach Nepal

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-Top News EU News

Germany limits use of AstraZeneca jabs

A health worker looks at a vial of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre

People under 60 should be able to receive the shot, but only “at the discretion of doctors, and after individual risk analysis and thorough explanation…reports Asian Lite News

Germany’s federal and health ministers have agreed to limit the general use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to people over age 60 starting Wednesday, citing concerns about blood clots.

People under 60 should be able to receive the shot, but only “at the discretion of doctors, and after individual risk analysis and thorough explanation,” according to the decision by the health ministers accessed by DPA news agency on Tuesday.

Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn and the 16 state health ministers came to the decision in an emergency meeting, after authorities in the cities of Berlin and Munich decided to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people under the age of 60.

Spahn said that while it was a setback in one sense for the AstraZeneca vaccine to be an increased risk for a certain age group, it also meant more people over 60 could be vaccinated more quickly.

“In that respect, I can really just expressly ask all people over 60 to take advantage of this vaccination offer,” Spahn said.

Germany’s vaccine commission issued a corresponding recommendation for AstraZeneca’s use, due to data on “rare, but very severe thromboembolic side effects” that had predominantly been observed in people under 60 in the four to 16 days after vaccination.

The side effects concerned blood clots in cerebral veins, especially observed among younger women.

Chancellor Angela Merkel justified the new age restrictions by saying that they helped to ensure confidence in coronavirus vaccines.

“Trust comes from the knowledge that every suspicion, every single case will be looked into,” said Merkel in Berlin after consultations with the country’s 16 state premiers. Openness and transparency are the best ways to deal with such a situation, the chancellor added.

Earlier, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, a medical regulatory body, said there had been 31 cases of cerebral thrombosis that were suspected to have occurred after administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Nine of those cases resulted in the death of patients, the institute said. All except two occurred in women between ages 20 and 63.

Also read:Germany set to return to lockdown

Earlier on Tuesday, several state and city authorities already suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for anyone under the age of 60, citing new data on suspected side effects.

Berlin Health Senator Dilek Kalayci announced the move and referred to it as a “precautionary measure.” She said Berlin authorities would wait for the outcome of talks at the federal level.

The Charite and Vivantes hospitals in the capital had suspended AstraZeneca jabs until further notice for women under the age of 55.

“From Charite’s point of view, this step is necessary, since further cerebral vein thromboses in women in Germany have become known,” Charite spokesperson Manuela Zingl said.

In the western state of North Rhine Westphalia, the heads of five of the six university hospitals also spoke out in favour of a temporary halt of AstraZeneca vaccinations for younger women.

The risk of further deaths is too high, according to a joint letter to the federal and state health ministers seen by dpa.

Authorities in the southern German city of Munich also suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people under the age of 60.

“Due to current developments, the city has decided, like Berlin, to suspend vaccinations with AstraZeneca for people under 60 as a precautionary measure until the question of possible complications for this group of people has been clarified,” a spokesperson said.

Germany and numerous other countries had temporarily suspended the use of AstraZeneca in March because several cases of thrombosis (blood clots) in the cerebral veins were reported.

The vaccine was deemed safe again for use shortly thereafter.

Also read:Germany cancels plan for Easter lockdown

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-Top News Asia News China

800K Chinese vaccine doses reach Nepal

Nepal receives 800K doses of Covid vax from China(Twitter)

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi handed over the vaccine shipment to Nepal’s Health Minister Hrydesh Tripathi at a function at the Tribhuvan International Airport….reports Asian Lite News

A day after the Nepal Army received 100,000 doses of Covid vaccine from their Indian counterparts as a goodwill gesture, 800,000 doses donated by China arrived in Kathmandu on Monday.

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi handed over the vaccine shipment to Nepal’s Health Minister Hrydesh Tripathi at a function at the Tribhuvan International Airport.

On Sunday evening, the Nepal Army received 100,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and locally manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

“100,000 doses of #MadeInIndia Covid-19 vaccine gifted by Indian Army to the Nepali Army were received at Tribhuvan Airport today,” the Embassy of India tweeted on Sunday evening.

The vaccine provided on Sunday will only be administered to the Nepalese Army personnel.

At a time when Nepal is struggling to continue its inoculation drive against Covid as cases have started to surge across the country, the Covishield vaccine will provide some relief, said officials.

Also read:Nepal President embarks on visit to B’desh

Since India halted the export of Covid vaccine, Nepal was also hit hard by the temporary sanction.

The Chinese vaccine that Nepal has received is developed China’s Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd, under Sinopharm.

Nepal has already granted emergency use authorization of the Sinopharm vaccine but the World Health Organization has not approved it.

Nepal had sent a flight os its national flag carrier to Beijing to transport the Chinese vaccine while India has been delivering the Covid vaccine by its own airplane.

Earlier, India provided 1 million doses of the vaccine to Nepal as a gift.

Later, Nepal procured another one million doses of Covid vaccine from Serum Institute at a discounted rate.

Also read:Nepal relaxes curbs on Tourism

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-Top News UK News

Johnson urged to share vaccines

Boris Johnson(IANS)

Several health and development charities urged the UK Prime minister to clarify how doses will be shared…reports Asian Lite News

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing calls on Sunday to immediately begin donating vaccines to poorer nations or risk hoarding supplies while frontline workers are exposed to coronavirus, the Evening Standard newspaper reported.

British health and development charities urged the prime minister to take “accelerated action” and “swiftly clarify” how doses will be shared, according to the newspaper, Xinhua news agency reported.

The appeal was contained in a letter to the prime minister by those including British government science advisor Jeremy Farrar and Save the Children UK, among others.

With more than half of adults having received a jab, they said Britain is “one of the world’s highest per-capita buyers” of vaccines and is on track to have more than 100 million surplus doses.

Doris Wildgoose, 99, receives her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Hyde Leisure Centre in Greater Manchester, Britain, on Jan. 7, 2021. (Photo by Jon Super/Xinhua/ians)

“There is therefore the high risk that the UK will be hoarding limited supply whilst health workers and the most vulnerable in low- and middle-income countries do not have access,” said the letter.

“The UK will be sitting on enough surplus vaccine doses to vaccinate the world’s frontline health workers twice over,” it said.

Also read:‘UK has exclusive deal with AstraZeneca’

They also urged Britain to immediately begin donating doses through the COVAX initiative, which is working to provide vaccines for low and middle-income countries.

The British government responded that it will share “the majority of any future surplus” vaccines with the COVAX pool “when these are available,” the London-based newspaper said.

COVAX is a global initiative backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure effective and equitable global access to Covid-19 vaccines.

Farrar said Britain will still have contractual access to at least 100 million surplus doses once the entire population is vaccinated, which he said “won’t be of use in the UK”.

“Now is the time to think beyond our borders,” he said. “The world won’t be safe while any single country is still fighting the virus.”

“The prime minister has confirmed the UK will share the majority of any future surplus coronavirus vaccines from our supply with the COVAX pool, when these are available. No one is safe until we are all safe,” a British government source said.

Also read:UK mulls Covid vax certification