Prabha Raghavan

“We're waiting clarity from the government on the number of vaccines they'll give us. Once we get that (clarity), we intend to start with 15,000 vaccinations on day one and keep ramping up as required,” said Dr Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd.

Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin received restricted use approval in an emergency situation on January 3 for use in those aged above 18. So far, the vaccine has been administered to healthcare and frontline workers “in clinical trial mode”.

The approval of PLI scheme for these hi-tech IT hardware gadgets comes after the Cabinet last week cleared a Rs 12,195 crore scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing.

This would be the first time that the company would be able to provide clarity on how many symptomatic cases of Covid-19 its indigenous vaccine can prevent.

As part of the review process, DRL said it will present the safety profile of the phase 2 study conducted on Sputnik V as well as interim data of its ongoing phase 3 study, which it is expected to complete by February 21.

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has approached India's apex drug regulatory body for emergency approval of Sputnik V. The Indian Express looks at what this would mean for the country and its vaccination campaign against Covid-19.

South Africa variant of Covid-19: What is this new strain and what does this mean for India's efforts to vaccinate its population against the novel coronavirus?

Sources said that while the civil structure survived the flood, at least a couple of gates of the spillway have been swept away. A boring machine was stuck inside a tunnel of the run-of-river plant, they said.

The Subject Expert Committee under CDSCO that looked into Pfizer's proposal and presentation did not recommend that the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) approve the application at present.

The company says it will "continue to engage" with the authority and resubmit its approval request with additional information "as it becomes available in the near future."

Anup Wadhawan said the government disagreed with the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) findings that this equalisation levy was discriminatory against American firms.

Creation of National Monetisation Pipeline of potential brownfield infrastructure assets, setting up Development Financial Institution also in works

The government has reduced duties on raw materials and inputs used by domestic manufacturers across eight industries, including petrochemicals, textiles, metals and aviation, as a measure to “correct” inverted duty structures.

This restructuring or readjustment of rates has been done to ensure that consumers do not end up paying more for most of these products, Sitharaman said.

India has seen a rising number of cases of infection with the UK variant; on January 23, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that at least 150 people have tested positive for the mutant strain.

India has seen a rising number of cases of the UK strain, with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stating on January 23 that at least 150 people have tested positive for this mutant strain.

Israel began vaccinating its population on December 19 after procuring “hundreds of thousands” of vaccines for an undisclosed amount--reportedly a premium--from Pfizer and BioNTech.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) under India’s apex drug regulatory body (CDSCO) has recommended that SII conduct its mid- to late-stage clinical trials (phase 2/3) “with placebo or other vaccine as the comparator for which justification is required”.

Intranasal vaccines, like Covid-19 vaccine BBV154, cut down on the need for syringes, needles and other components like alcohol swabs, as they are not injected.

The trials are expected to take place at five sites across four cities — Surat, Nashik, Jaipur and Ahmedabad, according to information from the Clinical Trials Registry of India.

Along with the Serum Institute of India's Covishield, which was shipped out Tuesday, Covaxin will be part of the government's mass vaccination programme against Covid-19 starting Friday.

The Hyderabad firm said it had successfully shipped the first batch of the vaccines to Ganavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai, and Lucknow.

The first consignment of 2.64 lakh doses of the vaccine took off for Delhi on a SpiceJet flight soon after 8 am, landing in the national capital a little before 10 am. A GoAir flight to Chennai and an Air India flight to Ahmedabad followed.

In Pune, SII officials said the consignments would be flown to the nearest airport and then driven to the depots. Some 60 locations, including in Maharashtra and Gujarat, and Chennai, are mentioned in the consignee list, the SII officials said.