09:39 (IST)
Coronavirus LATEST News Updates
India reports 60,753 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours
The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said that India reported 60,753 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total caseload to 2,98,23,546 in the country.
09:28 (IST)
Coronavirus LATEST News Updates
France delivers 10 oxygen generation plants to India
France on Friday delivered 10 oxygen generation plants to India to support the country's fight against the coronavirus pandemic. French ambassador Emmanuel Lenain said the plants can make 10 Indian hospitals self-reliant in the production of oxygen.
"France today delivered 10 #oxygen generator plants to make 10 Indian hospitals oxygen #aatmanirbhar. With the peak now thankfully over, France and India are continuing to work together to build up resilience and long-term autonomy," he tweeted.
France today delivered 10 #oxygen generator plants to make 10 Indian hospitals oxygen #aatmanirbhar.
— Emmanuel Lenain (@FranceinIndia) June 18, 2021
With the peak now thankfully over, France and India are continuing to work together to build up resilience and long-term autonomy.
This is what strategic partners do 🇫🇷🤝🇮🇳. pic.twitter.com/fkVp6KV57V
09:14 (IST)
Coronavirus LATEST News Updates
ICMR says 19 lakh COVID-19 tests conducted yesterday
The Indian Council of Medical Research (IMCR) on Saturday said that a total of 38,92,07,637 samples have been tested for coronavirus across the country up to 18 June. Of these, 19,02,009 samples were tested yesterday on Friday.
08:57 (IST)
Coronavirus LATEST News Updates
India hopes to resume vaccine exports: VK Paul
India, the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines, wants to resume exports of coronavirus doses but can't do so until its domestic needs are met, the head of the country's COVID-19 task force said Friday.
Once our immediate need of vaccinating a significant proportion of Indian people is achieved and vaccine stockpiles are visible from multiple sources, we would then like to play the role of serving others and providing vaccines to them, Dr. Vinod K. Paul said in an interview with The Associated Press. Paul defended the Indian government's move to restrict vaccine exports in April as it battled a ferocious surge in infections.
He noted that India had given away a substantial amount of vaccines at the start of the year as it launched its own immunization drive. So that has to be respected and has to be recognized, as not many nations have done that, he said.
Coronavirus LATEST News Updates: The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said that India reported 60,753 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total caseload to 2,98,23,546 in the country.
India, the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines, wants to resume exports of coronavirus doses but can't do so until its domestic needs are met, the head of the country's COVID-19 task force said Friday.
"Once our immediate need of vaccinating a significant proportion of Indian people is achieved and vaccine stockpiles are visible from multiple sources, we would then like to play the role of serving others and providing vaccines to them," Dr. Vinod K. Paul said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Paul defended the Indian government's move to restrict vaccine exports in April as it battled a ferocious surge in infections.
He noted that India had given away a substantial amount of vaccines at the start of the year as it launched its own immunization drive. So that has to be respected and has to be recognized, as not many nations have done that, he said.
From January, India began exporting vaccines to more than 90 countries. But the exports stopped when infections soared in India, leaving many developing countries without adequate supplies and affecting millions of people.
As critics accused India of mismanaging its sluggish vaccination efforts at home, countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh began looking toward China to fill their vaccine shortfalls.
The Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker, also abandoned its role as the main supplier to COVAX, the U.N.-backed project to supply vaccines to poor regions of the world. Last month, it said it may not be able to start delivering doses until the end of this year, dealing a significant blow to global efforts to immunize people against the coronavirus.
The COVID-19 Delta variant, which was first identified in India, is becoming the dominant variant globally because of its significantly increased transmissibility, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Friday.
According to the COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update issued by the WHO on June 15, the Delta variant is now being reported in about 80 countries around the world. Another 12 countries and areas are reporting the detection of B.1.617 without further specification of lineage at this time.
The B.1.617.2 Delta variant was first detected in India around October 2020.
"The whole situation is so dynamic because of the variants that are now circulating and...the Delta variant is well on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally because of its significantly increased transmissibility," Swaminathan said responding to a question at a press briefing in Geneva on Friday.
Her remarks came hours after Public Health England (PHE) said that the number of Delta variant infections has jumped by 33,630 in a week to hit a total of 75,953 in the UK, with the highly transmissible variant now making up 99 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in the country.
In Washington, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said she expects the Delta variant will become the dominant coronavirus strain in the United States.
As worrisome as this delta strain is with regard to its hyper transmissibility, our vaccines work, Walensky told ABC News on Friday.
In Geneva, Swaminathan said there is a need for more data from well-designed studies on the efficacy of the different vaccines that are in use in different countries against the different variants.
Swaminathan added that there has to be in place a study that uses a good design, or a randomised trial or studies during the rollout of a vaccine in a country to see what happens when people have one dose of the vaccine or two doses of the vaccine and see how many are getting infected and are ending up hospitalised and getting seriously ill.
This is something that we are watching very carefully and documenting and we now have a special expert group that's been set up to exactly track the performance of vaccines and their effectiveness when used at the population level in relation to the variants.
"This also means that countries need to do sequencing, side by side with documenting vaccine effectiveness. We need to expand sequencing, she said, adding that through this information, experts can start getting some solid and robust evidence on vaccine performance.
from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/3h0plrl
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