The Indian Panorama

Tag: vaccination

  • India’s coronavirus recovery rate rises to 96.53 percent

    India’s coronavirus recovery rate rises to 96.53 percent

    New Delhi (TIP): India’s COVID-19 caseload rose to 1,05,27,683 with 15,590 people testing positive for the infection in a day while the recoveries have surged to 1,01,62,738, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday, January 15. The country’s death toll increased to 1,51,918 with 191 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,01,62,738, pushing the national COVID-19 recovery rate to 96.53 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.44 per cent. The COVID-19 active caseload remained below 3 lakh. There are 2,13,027 active cases of coronavirus infections in the country which comprises 2.02 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past  60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29,  90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. According to the ICMR, 18,49,62,401 samples have been tested up to January 14 with 7,30,096 samples being tested on Thursday. The 191 new fatalities include 70 from Maharashtra, 19 from Kerala, 17 from West Bengal, 14 from Uttar Pradesh, 10 each from Chhattisgarh and Punjab, eight from Madhya Pradesh, six from Haryana, and four each from Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

    A total of 1,51,918 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 50,291 from Maharashtra followed by 12,246 from Tamil Nadu, 12,155 from Karnataka, 10,722 from Delhi, 10,010 from West Bengal, 8,543 from Uttar Pradesh, 7,138 from Andhra Pradesh and 5,473 from Punjab. The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. “Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the Ministry said on its website and added that state-wise distribution of figures was subject to further verification and reconciliation.

  • India took ‘very decisive’ steps to deal with corona virus: IMF chief

    Washington (TIP): IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva has praised India for taking “very decisive” steps to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences and asked the country to do more this year to support an accelerated transformation of the economy. The IMF Managing Director during a global media roundtable on Thursday predicted a less bad outlook for India in the upcoming World Economic Update due to the steps taken by it. “When I called on everybody to stay tuned for January 26, that applies very much to India. You would see a picture in our update that is less bad. Why? Because the country actually has taken very decisive action, very decisive steps to deal with the pandemic and to deal with the economic consequences of it,” Ms Georgieva said. The International Monetary Fund is scheduled to release its World Economic Update on January 26.

    Talking about India, she said it was a very dramatic lockdown for a country of this size of the population with people clustered so closely together. “Then India moved to more targeted restrictions and lockdowns. What we see is that that transition, combined with policy support, seems to have worked well. Why? Because if you look at mobility indicators, we are almost where we were before COVID in India, meaning that economic activities have been revitalised quite significantly,” she said.

  • 3 lakh healthcare workers to get Covid vaccine on January 16

    3 lakh healthcare workers to get Covid vaccine on January 16

    New Delhi (TIP): Around 3 lakh healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the massive nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive which is set to begin from January 16, official sources said.

    Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise “unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day”. “States have been advised to organise vaccination sessions taking into account 10 per cent reserve/wastage doses and an average of 100 vaccinations per session each day. “Therefore, any undue haste on the part of states to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day is not advised,” the ministry said on Wednesday. It also said that states and UTs have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward. “Around 3 lakh frontline healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of January 16,” a source said. The government on Tuesday, Jan 12,  hinted that vaccine recipients, for now, will not have the option to choose from the two vaccines—Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech—that have been approved for restricted emergency use in India. According to the Health Ministry getting vaccinated for COVID-19 will be voluntary.  Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had said on Tuesday, “At many places in the world more than one vaccine is being administered. But, presently, in no country vaccine recipients have the option of choosing the shots.”   According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated one crore healthcare workers, and around two crore frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities. The cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government, officials had said. All 1.65 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines—1.1 crore of Covishield and 55 lakh of Covaxin—procured by the Centre have been allocated to all states and UTs in proportion to their healthcare workers database, it said. According to official sources, most of the 1.1 crore Covishield doses from Pune-based SII have been shipped to 60 consignee points across India from where they will be sent to smaller centres.

    Of the 55 lakh doses of indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech ordered by the Centre, the first tranche of 2.4 lakh doses has been dispatched to 12 states.

    Covaxin has been sent to 12 sites—one each in Ganavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bengaluru, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai, Lucknow and Hyderabad, an official source said.

    Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

    Health Ministry officials said that there will be a gap of 28 days between two doses of COVID-19 vaccines and its effectiveness can be seen only after 14 days, and urged people to keep following COVID appropriate behaviour.

    The ministry, which has listed series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) on COVID-19 vaccine, also stated that it was advisable to receive a complete schedule of the anti-coronavirus vaccine irrespective of the past history of coronavirus infection as this will help in developing a strong immune response against the disease. On whether a person with an active COVID-19 infection is vaccinated, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria said a person with active and symptomatic COVID-19 infection may increase the risk of spreading the same to others at the vaccination site and thus infected individuals should defer vaccination for at least 14 days after the symptoms are resolved.

    Elaborating on the possible side-effects of COVID-19 vaccine, Guleria said that as is true for other vaccines, some will have some degree of side effects in some individuals which could be in form of mild fever, pain at the site of injection, body ache, etc. States have been asked to making arrangements to deal with any COVID-19 vaccine-related side effects as one of the measures towards safe vaccine delivery.

                    Source: PTI