Sonu’s tweet came in reaction to a news piece that said that states will get the Covishield vaccine at Rs 400 per dose, private hospitals at Rs 600 and centre at Rs 150…reports Asian Lite News.
Actor Sonu Sood and his activities in the Covid era is remarkable. Sonu Sood feels the Covid preventive vaccine should be available to the needy for free, and there should be a cap on pricing.
A health worker looks at a vial of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre
“Every needy should get vaccine for free. Very important to put a cap on the pricing. Corporates and individuals who can afford should come forward to help everyone get vaccinated. Let’s do business some other time,” Sonu Sood tweeted on Wednesday.
Every needy should get vaccine for free. Very important to put a cap on the pricing. Corporates and individuals who can afford should come forward to help everyone get vaccinated. धंधा फिर कभी और कर लेंगे। pic.twitter.com/PrPjGpjcdh
Sonu’s tweet came in reaction to a news piece that said that states will get the Covishield vaccine at Rs 400 per dose, private hospitals at Rs 600 and centre at Rs 150.
Meanwhile, the Union Government on Wednesday said there are more than 21.57 lakh active Covid cases in the country, which is double the maximum number of active cases India had last year.
Close to “99 million doses of vaccines last week went into high- and upper-middle-income and some low- and middle-income countries,said WHO official…reports Asian Lite News
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that only 1 per cent of the 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were administered last week went in the lowest-income countries.
Close to “99 million doses of vaccines last week went into high- and upper-middle-income and some low- and middle-income countries, but only one percent of that went to the lowest-income countries”, Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the WHO Director-General on Organizational Change said at a press conference on Monday.
Asked whether more vaccines should be produced, Aylward said that “we need to be careful thinking that we can simply build additional capacity”, because “that capacity is still going to the wrong places”, reports Xinhua news agency.
The world body said that it is working with manufacturers to help increase vaccine capacity for the COVAX Facility, a WHO-led initiative to distribute vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.
Aylward said it will “take weeks and months” to increase vaccine supplies and “in the meantime, we’ve got to take some urgent and important decisions about how we are going to use the vaccines that exist today”.
Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist of the WHO, explained at the same press conference that the “immediate need” of COVAX is to increase vaccine supplies by working with manufacturers and suppliers on suppressing “roadblocks and obstacles”, as well as ensuring that export bans “don’t interfere with the process of vaccine manufacturing”.
American export controls on raw materials and equipment could stop India’s vaccine production in the coming months unless America supplies 37 critical items, reports Asian Lite News.
Production lines in India, making at least 160 million doses of Covid vaccine a month, will come to a halt in the coming weeks unless America supplies 37 critical items.
A report in The Economist said last week, the billionth dose of Covid-19 vaccine was produced.
It is a sign of how greatly manufacturing capacity has expanded over the past six months that the next billion doses could be produced by May 27, according to Airfinity, an analytics firm.
“Yet this ambition is at risk from American export controls on raw materials and equipment. Production lines in India, making at least 160 million doses of Covid vaccine a month, will come to a halt in the coming weeks unless America supplies 37 critical items,” the report said.
Earlier, the world’s largest vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla on Friday appealed to US President Joe Biden to lift the US embargo on exporting raw materials for Covid-19 vaccine production.
SII is manufacturing Covishield, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. The vaccine is not only being used in India but also exported to a number of countries.
Tagging the Twitter handle of the President of the United States, Poonawalla wrote, “Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the US, I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the US so that vaccine production can ramp up.”
Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details. 🙏🙏
With the number of new Covid-19 cases nearly doubling over the past two months, approaching the highest infection rate the world has seen during the pandemic, the unequal distribution of vaccines is not only a moral outrage, but economically and epidemiologically self-defeating, the head of the UN health agency told a special ministerial meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Friday.
“Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time,” World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the gathering in his opening remarks. “And we are failing.”
Driving that point home, he said that of the 832 million vaccine doses administered, 82 per cent have gone to high or upper middle-income countries, while only 0.2 per cent have been sent to their low-income peers. In high-income countries alone, one in four people have received a vaccine, a ratio that drops precipitously to 1 in 500 in poorer countries.
Rapidly spreading variants, the inconsistent use and premature easing of public health measures, fatigue with social restrictions and the “dramatic” inequity in vaccine coverage; all have led to an alarming spike in new cases and deaths, he said.
The WHO chief called on countries with enough vaccines to cover their populations “many times over” to make immediate donations to COVAX.
In March, the WHO called on all countries to drop restrictions on the export of vaccines and vital components, as a rush for Covid-19 jabs puts pressure on global supply, Irish Times reported.
Several countries around the world have imposed bans or restrictions on exports of doses and key vaccine ingredients amid a scramble for stock, causing logjams in complex international pharmaceutical supply chains that could slow progress to end the pandemic, the global health body warned, as per the report.
“Some countries have imposed legal restrictions on the export of critical supplies. This is putting lives at risk around the world. We call on all countries not to stockpile supplies that are needed urgently to ramp up production of vaccines,” the WHO chief said.
Ursula von der Leyen received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver additional 50 million vaccine doses…reports Asian Lite News
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“After we passed 100 million vaccinations in the EU, I’m very glad I got my first shot of Covid-19 vaccine today,” she said in a tweet on Thursday.
“Vaccinations will further gather pace, as deliveries are accelerating in the EU. The swifter we vaccinate, the sooner we can control the pandemic,” she added.
The European Union’s executive chief received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver in the second quarter of this year an additional 50 million vaccine doses, originally scheduled for the fourth quarter, reports Xinhua news agency.
On Wednesday, von der Leyen stressed that the EU member states should focus on vaccines that have “proven their worth”, in an indirect reference to the AstraZeneca jab.
Shortage in the supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and concerns over its “possible link to very rare cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelets” have somewhat stalled the fast vaccination pace.
Vax Shortages and ineffectiveness haunt China’s internal as well as global vaccine programme …. Writes Dr Varun Sharma
The government and state-run media in China were jubilant after the figures showed the country, which is criticised for the Covid-19 pandemic, exported over 114 million doses of vaccine. It was seen as vaccine diplomacy to build political influence with individual country. China however has hit a snag. China is witnessing a sudden shortage of vaccines to be distributed in the country as well as abroad. And to make the problem worse, many countries have reported low effectiveness of China- manufactured vaccines, showing reluctance. Now the doubts about Covid-19 vaccines could dent China’s diplomacy efforts.
A shipment of China-manufactured Covid-19 vaccine Sinovac arrived in Singapore in March 2020, which Chinese Embassy said would contribute to Singapore’s efforts to defeat the virus and restore normal order of life and economic development. However, the Chinese vaccines are still in a storage facility as Singapore government has decided not to use them owing to lack of transparency in clinical trials. Instead, it has gone ahead with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
In Kyrgyzstan too, many people including doctors have refused to use Chinese vaccines and instead expressed desire to use Russian ones.
A top Chinese official recently accepted that China- manufactured vaccines did have very high protection rates. Gao Fu, Director of the China Centers for Disease Control, said: “The protection rates of existing vaccines are not high. It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process.”
The rare admission by top Chinese bureaucrat took social media storm. And as expected, Chinese authorities censored online discussions. Also, the state-run news outlet Global Times carried an interview of Gao Fu, who then called it “a complete misunderstanding”.
While Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac have met the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) requirements, China has not released the data of clinical trials with public.
Health regulators dodged the question when asked by a reporter about when the data would be released. There have always been global concerns about Chinese ways of conducting research. In July 2020, questions were raised over fraudulent data in research papers by Chinese-authors since they had used have reused identical sets of images.
A YouGov survey revealed that the most of 19,000 people from across 17 countries were distrustful of the vaccines from China.
Inside China too, the vaccination programme is marred by ineffective and inadequate vaccine jabs. Although China was the first country to start vaccinating its nationals, its progress has been quite disappointing. There are just 2.9 doses per resident. 1 According to a survey conducted in February 2020, health professionals are among the most hesitant people among Chinese to take vaccine as 72 percent of them showed lack of confidence.
“Initially, we know so little about the vaccine, and there’s a lack of evidence to support its safety and efficacy,” a Beijing-based doctor told Financial Times on condition of anonymity. China has ambitious plans of vaccinating 560 million people – 40 percent of its population — by the end of June 2020.2 However, sudden shortage of jabs has derailed the plans. Now, the government in Beijing has asked all local authorities in China to stop compulsory vaccination drives. Again, the Global Times has come up with rebuttal. It said the reports of vaccine shortage was wrong interpretation by the western media of measures to adjust China’s local vaccination programs.
The underperformance of Chinese vaccines could be due to manufacturing issues and vaccine export diplomacy. There have been concerns over safety and side-effects of vaccines produced in China. In the past too, average Chinese people refused to get themselves or their children vaccinated owing to safety issue. There is one more major factor—sale of fake Covid-19 vaccines.
Chinese agencies busted several fake vaccine networks, one of which was found to have produced about 58,000 of fake concoctions. It does have negative impact on the countries that are buying Chinese vaccines. Interpol came across smuggling of such fake Chinese vaccines to South Africa in March this year. These are some of the concerns people have before they tend to get Chinese vaccine jabs.
Gupta said it would now be possible for doctors and frontline Covid warriors to work longer without the discomforts and hassles associated with conventional PPE kits that often result in profuse perspiration and a feeling of suffocation…reports Asian Lite News.
Addressing a major challenge to Covid warriors, a medical equipment manufacturing factory of Mysuru, has developed a unique and affordable PPE suit that allows free flow of filtered air.
GloAir, produced by Glowtronics of Mysuru, has been designed to make life comfortable and efficient for the doctors and frontline Covid fighters.
Jagan Gupta, executive director, on a visit to Agra, Mathura, said, that his organisation was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to go ‘swadeshi’ and to support governmental efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, we have produced this unique safety kit. “GLOAIR” keeps the whole body sweat-free and comfortable enabling the wearer to put in long hours of work.
Gupta said it would now be possible for doctors and frontline Covid warriors to work longer without the discomforts and hassles associated with conventional PPE kits that often result in profuse perspiration and a feeling of suffocation. “Gloair” will add to the arsenal required to supplement efforts to contain the spread of the Coronavirus and equip the doctors to address the health hazards.
“Our continuous interactions with doctors at the hospitals where Covid patients were being treated, highlighted the hassles of wearing PPEs for long hours resulting in not only fatigue and loss of energy due to lack of fresh air to various parts of the body. To overcome this inadequacy, we worked on developing a kit that allowed for circulation of fresh, filtered air for the whole body,” Gupta explained.
“Our system filters out most airborne contaminants, as we are using filters that have a viral removal efficacy of 99.99 per cent, and can be used for up to 100 hours. The Gloair PPE kit is equipped with air blower, air filters, motor, power bank, charger, waist belt and a user manual.
It is a comfortable with light weight design that does not require any external help to put on or take off. We have deliberately kept the unit price affordable to make Gloair’s large-scale use possible,” the company director added.
Asked to explain the operation of the system, Gupta said, “the Gloair PPE kit has a tube connected to the air outlet of the air supply module. To turn on the air supply, the USB connector from the air supply module is plugged into the power bank which starts the motor of the blower to pump in filtered air into the full body PPE kit through the connecting air tube. The air flow can be increased or reduced by using a Flow Control Knob. A fully charged Power Bank will supply air up to eight hours in normal conditions.”
Another problem faced by users is that the eyeglasses or visor gets fogged out due to perspiration thereby obstructing view. The Gloair PPE has a larger visor that provides clear vision without fogging because of the continuous supply of filtered air. For details visit our website www.Glowtronics.com, he added.
Gupta said that the company is planning to market Gloair in a big way to support Government efforts to fight the pandemic, as also to provide a user friendly PPE to secure the health of the Corona warriors who have been relentlessly waging this war for more than a year.
External affairs minister backs India’s ability to manufacture a range of Covid-19 vaccines, says this couldn’t be seen as a one-way street, reports Asian Lite News.
Equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines can be achieved only with the creation of additional manufacturing capabilities in countries such as India, external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said.
Participating in a session at the Raisina Dialogue that focused on vaccines and global expectations, Jaishankar held up India’s ability to manufacture a range of Covid-19 vaccines as an example of global cooperation and said this couldn’t be seen as a “one-way street”.
“Equitable access [to vaccines] is critically important in this [fight against the pandemic], because we all know that no one will be safe till everyone is safe,” he said during the virtual session moderated by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman.
There is a need for additional production capabilities for vaccines, and without it, “distributive justice by itself will not be adequate”, he added.
A health worker analyses samples of COVID-19 vaccines, developed by Chinese company Sinovac
Jaishankar said he could understand a country’s decision to focus on protecting its own people when it comes under stress because of rising infections and noted that the number of Covid-19 cases in India is going up too and the government chose to deal with the immediate challenge.
“To the extent that you have margins and the ability and the obligation to help others, I think it’s the decent thing to do. Doing good is also doing smart,” he said.
Noting that India’s ability to make vaccines is a result of international cooperation, he added: “International cooperation is not a one-way street where we are giving things to other people and somewhere short-changing ourselves.”
Jaishankar’s comments came against the backdrop of the Indian government’s decision to exercise greater control over vaccine exports following a sudden spike in Covid-19 infections.
India added over two lakh new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, an unprecedented figure, to take its toll to over 1.4 crore. India has been the world’s worst-hit country since April 2, forcing states scrambling to impose curbs to control the virus.
So far, India has provided 65.1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 90 countries, including 10.6 million doses supplied as grants. India’s deliveries of vaccines to other countries followed on from its work in providing humanitarian aid to numerous countries after natural disasters and its actions to address climate crisis, Jaishankar said.
The Indian government’s partnership with the Gates Foundation is a “global fairness coalition” aimed at ensuring that weaker and vulnerable people in some countries don’t get left behind, he said. The work done by Indian vaccine manufacturer with the WHO-backed COVAX facility is ensuring that African and Caribbean countries which don’t have wherewithal to access the market get timely assistance, he added.
Part of India’s rise would be to demonstrate that its additional capabilities are in the “hands of a country which embraces the world”, said Jaishankar.
A health worker looks at a vial of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre
Denmark first suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 11, citing “very rare but severe side effects” discovered during the jab’s safety monitoring….reports Asian Lite News
Denmark has decided to entirely cease administering the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, the country’s health authority confirmed.
“Based on the scientific findings, our overall assessment is there is a real risk of severe side effects associated with using the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca. We have, therefore, decided to remove the vaccine from our vaccination program,” Xinhua news agency quoted Soren Brostrom, director general of the Danish Health Authority, as saying to the media on Wednesday.
In a statement, the authority also claimed that the pandemic was “currently under control” in Denmark, adding that this had contributed to the decision.
Denmark first suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 11, citing “very rare but severe side effects” discovered during the jab’s safety monitoring.
Denmark’s decision on Wednesday came in the wake of the European Medical Agency’s (EMA) recent verdict that “the benefits of using the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca continue to outweigh the risks for people who receive it”.
The Danish Health Authority agrees with the EMA’s general findings, Brostrom said, adding that “in the midst of an epidemic, it has been a difficult decision to continue our vaccination program without an effective and readily available vaccine against Covid-19”.
However, the authority referred to further comments by the EMA that the “use of the vaccine during vaccination campaigns at the national level should also consider the pandemic situation and vaccine availability in each individual country”.
“We are basically in agreement with the EMA’s assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is why it is important to emphasize that it is still an approved vaccine,” said Brostrom.
Sonia Gandhi said that there is a shortage of vaccine in the states and it should be made available to them on priority….reports Asian Lite News
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi has written a letter to the Prime Minister and asked him to exempt the medicines and equipment required for Covid-19 treatment and Rs 6,000 should be transferred every month in the accounts of those who are eligible.
Sonia Gandhi said that there is a shortage of vaccine in the states and it should be made available to them on priority.
She also advocated of allowing all the vaccines which have been given clearance.
While urging the government to put a system in place for relief and rehabilitation of the migrant workers and transfer Rs 6,000 every month to the eligible people as the curfews and curbs have been imposed to contain the virus spread.
A health worker looks at a vial of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination centre
She wrote the letter following a meeting of the Chief Ministers of the Congress ruled states. The Congress also started a social media campaign for vaccination for all.
Claiming that the country is facing a shortage of vaccines, the party said that export of the vaccine should be stopped immediately and the people of India should be vaccinated first.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “The country needs Covid-19 vaccine, please raise your voice as everybody has a right for secured life.”
Reiterating Rahul Gandhi’s demand to ban the export of the vaccine, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said: “Indians should be vaccinated first… that’s indispensable… before we take care of the rest of the world. We urge the Centre to first ensure that vaccines are available to all Indians and only then lift the export moratorium on vaccines.”
The development has come at a time when India is witnessing an exponential surge in Covid-19 cases and vaccines have been much in demand….reports Asian Lite News
A government expert panel has given its nod to emergency use authorisation of Russian-made Covid vaccine, Sputnik-V, in India, Union Health Ministry sources said.
After the Drug Controller General of India gives assent to the Subject Expert Committee’s approval, the sources said, India will have a third Covid vaccine after AstraZeneca-Oxford University developed-Serum Institute of India-manufactured Covishield and Bharat Biotech-developed and manufactured Covaxin.
Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Dr N.K. Arora, talking to IANS, said: “Though, I am yet to receive any official information about its approval, but it would be good news for India if it is approved.”
Explaining features of this vaccine, Arora said: “Sputnik is a two dose vaccine. The composition of the first dose will be different from the second dose and there should be at least a three to four weeks gap between the first dose and the second. The published data suggest that it has 91 per cent efficacy. Some more clarity on it will also come soon.”
The development has come at a time when India is witnessing an exponential surge in Covid-19 cases and vaccines have been much in demand.
A medical health worker giving a shot of Covishield vaccine to a frontline worker. Covid-19 vaccination drive at private hospital daryaganj in New Delhi
Meanwhile, amid reports that the subject expert committee (SEC) has approved Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories’ (DRL) application for the Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik V to tackle Coronavirus pandemic, the city-based company is yet to receive official communication about the approval.
“There is no approval received yet. We are still awaiting the statement from the SEC. Once we get something, we will release a statement,” a DRL official said on Monday.
He said that the SEC has to first pass on the recommendation to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) and then the latter has to give the nod.
The pharmaceutical major is expecting that this process might take a day or two.
When quizzed on the company’s preparedness to produce the vaccine in large numbers, the official said ‘we will be releasing details as and when we get some input there (from SEC and DCGI)’.
This development comes at a time when several Indian states are facing severe vaccine shortage and is a positive development.
Meanwhile, Dr. Reddy’s scrip rallied on the bourses, reacting to the approval news reports.
