Tag: jabs

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COVID-19 India News

‘Over 20 crore unutilised Covid jabs available with states’

The Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country, said the ministry…reports Asian Lite News

More than 20.16 crore balance and unutilised COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with states and union territories to be administered, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in its official statement today.

“More than 192.27 crore (1,92,27,23,625) vaccine doses have been provided to states/UTs so far through the Government of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement category,” said the ministry.

“More than 20.16 crore (20,16,91,220) balance and unutilised COVID-19 Vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered,” it added.

The Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country, said the ministry.

As per the ministry, the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination started on January 16, 2021. The new phase of universalization of COVID-19 vaccination commenced on June 21, 2021.

As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Government of India has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them with Covid Vaccines free of cost.

In the new phase of the universalisation of the COVID19 vaccination drive, the Union Government will procure and supply (free of cost) 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers in the country to states and UTs.

The vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of more vaccines, and advanced visibility of vaccines available to the states and UTs for enabling better planning by them and streamlining the vaccine supply chain.

India reports 2,380 fresh Covid cases, 56 deaths

India on Thursday again reported a spike of 2,380 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, against the 2,067 infections registered the previous day, according to the Union Health Ministry.

In the same period, there were 56 additional Covid-19 fatalities which increased the nationwide death toll to 522,062.

Meanwhile, the country’s active caseload has increased to 13,433, accounting for 0.03 per cent of the total positive cases.

Another 1,231 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative tally to 4,25,14,479. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.76 per cent.

Also in the same period, a total of 4,49,114 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall to 83.33 crore.

While the weekly positivity rate currently stood at 0.43 per cent, the daily positivity rate has reported a considerable rise at 0.53 per cent.

As of Thursday morning, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 187 crore. This has been achieved through 2,28,80,354 sessions.

Over 2.53 crore adolescents have been administered with the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine since the beginning of the inoculation drive for this age group.

ALSO READ-Global Covid caseload tops 507 mn

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-Top News COVID-19 UK News

Jabs for kids as UK accelerates vaccine programme


The move means that around 3 million children could be eligible for the jab and comes despite Britain’s vaccine advisory body deciding not to recommend mass vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds…reports Asian Lite News.

Children aged 12 to 15 will be offered the Covid-19 vaccine, Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of Britain’s all four nations have confirmed.

England’s CMO Chris Whitty said on Monday that they came to their decision after considering “what effect this will have on transmission in schools and effects on education”, Xinhua news agency reported.

“It’s a useful tool to reduce the disruption,” he added. It is expected the vaccinations will be given through school immunisation programme.

Healthy children aged 12 to 15 will be offered a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine and the rollout should begin “as soon as possible”, England’s deputy CMO Jonathan Van-Tam was quoted by local media as saying.

There are concerns of a rise in cases following children’s return to school after the summer holiday. The latest decision takes into account the impact of the pandemic on children’s education as well as the risks to their mental health from missing school.

The move means that around 3 million children could be eligible for the jab and comes despite Britain’s vaccine advisory body deciding not to recommend mass vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds.

“They are particularly effective as ‘vectors’, transmitting the infection between households.

Now that the much more infectious Delta variant is prevalent we will struggle to control the virus with vaccination alone — and we certainly won’t succeed if this age group is unvaccinated,” said Peter English, immediate past chair of the Public Health Medicine Committee of the British Medical Association.

Previously, Britain’s vaccine advisory body, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), has issued the advice that children aged 12 to 15 with medical conditions should receive two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, but that healthy children in this age group should still not receive the Covid-19 vaccine.

In its advisory report, the JCVI said the “individual” health benefits from vaccination for children aged 12 to 15 was marginal, while the risk of potentially serious side effects, including myocarditis, is “very rare, but potentially serious”.

More than 89 per cent of people aged 16 and over in Britain have had their first dose of vaccine and nearly 81 per cent have received both doses, the latest figures showed.

Booster jabs over over-50s

A UK-wide programme of booster jabs to help prevent Covid will be confirmed on Tuesday, the BBC reported.

Ministers are expected to announce jabs for the over-50s as part of their Covid Winter Plan, after advice from the independent vaccine panel, the JCVI.

According to BBC, the booster would be a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine at least six months after a second dose.

ALSO READ-Pfizer initially rejected BioNTech’s offer to develop vaccine

READ MORE-UK drops plans for compulsory vaccine passes

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COVID-19 Gujarat India News

Dahod shows the way in providing jobs under MGNREGA

He said that at the all-India level, the South Parganas district in West Bengal is second on the list for generating 2.20 lakh employment on a single day…reports Anand Singh.

At a time when lakhs of people employed in different sectors have been left jobless owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, Gujarat’s Dahod, one of the tribal districts of the state, has created record number of jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

According to the Central government data, Dahod broke its own record of 2,40,500 labour per day under MGNREGA generated last year by providing jobs to 2,78,484 people in 24 hours on June 17.

Rachit Raj, the outgoing District Development Officer of Dahod, who was transferred to Junagadh as District Magistrate on June 19, said: “During the Covid pandemic, many people lost their jobs and returned back to their villages. So, it was challenge for us to provide employment to the people who had returned to their villages from different cities.”

The 2014 batch IAS officer added that history has been made in Gujarat, as no district has generated so much labour employment on a single day till date.

He said that at the all-India level, the South Parganas district in West Bengal is second on the list for generating 2.20 lakh employment on a single day.

Highlighting the initiatives in view of the pandemic, the IAS officer said: “We distributed work in the district. We initiated the work of digging community wells, which could provide water for cultivation, drinking and other purposes.”

He said that the administration also brought the work of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana under MGNREGA to provide employment to the people.

He said that Dahod district reported the highest labour engagement under MGNREGA, with most of them employed under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and the Sujalam Sufalam Jal Sanchay Yojana.

According to the officer, 12,378 households were employed in April and 77,429 in May this year. With an increase in daily wages from Rs 198 to Rs 224, they managed to sustain their livelihood, he added.

When asked given that Dahod is one of the tribal dominated districts of Gujarat, how did he control the spread of the virus in the villages as scores of people returned back from the cities, Raj said: “We ensured that the work under MGNREGA provided safety to the people. We also made the sarpanchs of the villages aware to keep a track of the Covid patients in their villages. We also set up Covid centres in the primary schools and made adequate arrangements for medicines for the people.”

The officer said that he also started a new initiative to deal with the Covid crisis named ‘Panch Mantra’.

“This included five mantras — one, we served Ayurvedic kadha called ‘Ukala’ to boost the immunity of the people in the district as suggested by the Ayush Ministry. It was provided free of cost to people.

“The second mantra was mass sanitization; the third mantra included individual sanitisation; the fourth mantra was fogging, so as to kill mosquitoes or germs or other parasites; and the fifth mantra included public address system, in which we used loudspeakers to create mass awareness regarding the dos and dont’s for corona, preparedness, elderly care etc. In this way, we tried to defeat Covid and make the entire zone corona free.

“These activities are being carried out panchayat-wise, making sure that all principles of care and caution, including social distancing, are maintained,” the officer added.

To a question about the number of people getting affected by the second wave of the pandemic and several reports of people not getting hospital beds, Raj said: “On April 18, we formed a committee comprising doctors and district administration officials for ‘Patient Audit’ to identify the people admitted to the hospitals who had almost recovered and did not need hospital beds.

“We spoke to the doctors and shifted the patients who required the least medical attention to other Covid wards so that people in need of hospital beds or ICU beds didn’t go back.”

He also pointed out that earlier this year, Dahod had bagged the best performance award under the grievance redressal category in the awards announced by Central government for the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samaan Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme.

The IAS officer further said that Dahod being one of the tribal districts of the state, they also focused on improving the nourishment of the people, especially the children and girls.

“We distributed Covid kits to the adolescent girls and children in the district, and focused on the Aanganbadi centres to provide proper meal to the children,” he said.

Raj said that to tackle malnourishment, “we covered pregnant ladies, newborns, infants and adolescent girls”.

“We screened these people and then provided them treatment to solve the problem,” he said.

The IAS officer further pointed out that a ‘Mission Mangalam’ (ladies’ self-help group) project has been initiated in the district through which women are earning good amounts, helping them become self-dependent and sustainable.

Raj also said that the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in Dahod district has witnessed a decline in the last two years.

Citing figures, the officer said: “The MMR in Dahod was 51 in 2019-20, which dropped to 40 in 2020-21, which is very less as compared to the state or national average.”

ALSO READ-In this Jammu village, the dead live on in the trees

READ MORE-Alipurduar DM braves hills, jungle to vaccinate villagers

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-Top News COVID-19 India News

‘Moving Covid shots to India could benefit children’

According to a Hindustan Times report, the UK has administered at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 55 percent of the country’s population and on Saturday, the National Health Service (NHS) opened bookings for people aged 32 and 33 to get their first Covid shot…reports Asian Lite News.

Moving Covid-19 vaccines from Britain to countries like India could benefit children back home, according to an expert on the immunisation advisory committee for the UK government, media reported.

Speaking at BBC Breakfast, Adam Finn, member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, stressed that the ongoing pandemic is a global crisis and the government needs to “think globally and not just domestically.”

“It may well be better for children in this country if vaccines are used to stop outbreaks like the massive outbreak in India which then get imported into this country and provide a threat to them and their schooling,” he was quoted as saying.

According to a Hindustan Times report, the UK has administered at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 55 per cent of the country’s population and on Saturday, the National Health Service (NHS) opened bookings for people aged 32 and 33 to get their first Covid shot.

The latest expansion of vaccination eligibility would cover about 1.1 million people, according to the NHS. Finn said that it remains unclear whether children will need vaccination, it was reported.

The government Friday launched plans for a new “Global Pandemic Radar” to identify emerging COVID-19 variants and track new diseases around the world.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will lead an implementation group, supported by the Wellcome Trust, to launch this new international partnership to identify, track and share data on new COVID-19 variants and monitor vaccine resistance in populations, according to a statement from the British government.

Covid-19 teaches Indian armed forces new lessons in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.(Photo India Narrative)

The “Global Pandemic Radar” is expected to be fully up and running with a network of surveillance hubs before the end of 2021, the statement also said.

“We need to build a system of disease surveillance fit for the 21st century, with real-time data sharing and rapid genomic sequencing and response,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the statement.

“A ‘Global Pandemic Radar’ will ensure that we are vigilant to new variants and emerging pathogens, and can rapidly develop the vaccines and treatments needed to stop them in their tracks,” he said. (with inputs from ANI/Xinhua)

ALSO READ-ISRO set to transfer ‘Shwaas’ technology to industries

READ MORE-Hancock confident about reopening plans

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-Top News EU News Europe

Italy crosses 5mn jabs milestone

5mn inoculations made Italy the third European Union (EU) member state to reach that milestone…reports Asian Lite News

Italy’s coronavirus vaccine rollout hit a major milestone, though it appeared unlikely the country would reach its end-of-month target for daily vaccinations.

The country’s Ministry of Health reported on Saturday that five million Italian residents had been fully vaccinated, making Italy the third European Union (EU) member state to reach that milestone, following Germany and France, Xinhua news agency reported.

A total of 17.3 million people in Italy have received at least the first dose of a vaccine, which means that around 28.5 per cent of the country’s population is partially vaccinated.

The Italian vaccine rollout, which was launched on December 27, 2020, had seen problems so far, including a four-day pause in the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid worries about blood clots in some patients.

Earlier this month, the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was halted before it was set to start due to similar safety worries. But the government started limited use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine Wednesday, with more doses expected to arrive next week.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires just one dose for full effect. All the other vaccines approved for distribution in Italy — the AstraZeneca, BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna — require two doses.

Also read:Italy PM receives AstraZeneca jab

Italian General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, the country’s Covid-19 Emergency Commissioner, set a goal earlier this month of administering at least 500,000 jabs a day by the end of April.

That target no longer appears feasible despite recent developments, according to statistician Giovanni Sebastiani, who was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying the daily vaccination rate should reach 350,000 per day by the end of the month, up from fewer than 300,000 per day currently.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Fabrizio Curcio, head of the country’s civil defence agency, admitted the 500,000-vaccination-per-day goal was unlikely to be met, though he said the target would be reached by early May.

He said his main worry was whether vaccine supplies would allow that level to be sustained.

“We will reach half a million daily shots by early May, but what will matter will be keeping it over time,” Curcio said. “This is crucially linked to the availability of vaccines.”

A staff member measures a visitor’s temperature at Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy, on Sept. 4, 2020. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua)


Curcio said the earlier temporary halt in the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine “has weighed not only because there have been delays but because it has affected public trust.”

“We measure this loss of confidence with cancellations at around 30 per cent to 40 per cent in some areas, about 10 per cent on average across the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, 275 candidate vaccines are being developed — 91 of them in clinical trials — in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Friday.

Also read:Italy sets out roadmap for reopening

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-Top News USA

Biden promises jabs for all US adults by April 19

President Joe Biden (www.instagram.comwhitehouse)

Biden announced the new timetable after his visit to a vaccination site in Alexandria, Virginia, moving up his original deadline of May 1 by nearly two weeks…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that all American adults will be eligible for Covid-19 vaccine by April 19.

Biden announced the new timetable after his visit to a vaccination site in Alexandria, Virginia, moving up his original deadline of May 1 by nearly two weeks, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Biden said that 150 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered within his first 75 days in office, in line with a stated goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office.

He urged Americans to continue to practice pandemic safety measures, saying the country is not “at the finish line yet” and may experience more “disease and misery” before July 4.

A few weeks ago, Biden called on states, tribes and territories to make all US adults eligible for vaccination no later than May 1.

Also read:Biden’s boost for infra, jobs

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-Top News USA

Biden reassures Americans again

US President Joe Biden

90 per cent of adult Americans will be eligible to get vaccinated by April 19, the remaining 10 per cent will be eligible by May 1, said Biden…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden has said 90 per cent of adult Americans will be eligible to get Covid-19 vaccination in three weeks.

He told a White House briefing on Monday that while 90 per cent of adult Americans will be eligible to get vaccinated by April 19, the remaining 10 per cent will be eligible by May 1, Xinhua news agency reported.

Biden’s remarks came as the country has seen a rise in new Covid-19 cases in 27 states.

Biden said cases are “going back” as people relax safeguards. Letting down guard could make the pandemic “worse,” he noted.

Biden vowed to direct governors to reinstate mask mandates.

Earlier this month, Biden said he would direct all states, tribes, and territories to make all adult Americans eligible for Covid-19 vaccines by May 1.

Also read:Biden condemns Myanmar for outrageous violence

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-Top News USA

Biden promises 200mn jabs in 100 days

Joe Biden

Biden had initially planned to inoculate with 100 million shots in the arms of Americans in 100 days, but it has changed to 200mn…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden announceda new goal of administering 200 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Americans in his first 100 days in office.

Biden made the announcement at a press conference here on Thursday which was his first since taking office on January 20, Xinhua news agency reported.

He had initially set the plan of having 100 million shots in the arms of Americans by his 100th day in office, but is now increasing the objective to 200 million.

“I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has come close to what we’re doing,” Biden told reporters.

“I believe we can do it,” he added.

As of Thursday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a total of 133 million Covid-19 vaccine shots had been administered, and that 14 per cent of the American population is fully vaccinated.

The federal government has a deal with Johnson & Johnson for delivery of 200 million doses, a CNBC News report said.

The first half of that order expected by the end of June.

Merck is helping to make J&J’s shot, which is a single-dose vaccination.

The administration also has deals with drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna for a combined 600 million doses.

Also read:Tough to meet May 1 Afghan troop exit deadline: Biden