Coronavirus vaccine highlights: Woman healthcare worker dies in Gurgaon after receiving Covid-19 vaccine

India has begun the commercial export of the AstraZeneca 'Covishield' vaccine today to Brazil and Morocco after receiving clearance from the government. The vaccines are also being sent to immediate neighbours, with Bhutan having received 1.5 lakh doses of the Serum Insitute of India manufactured shot. Bangladesh was 'gifted' over 20 lakh doses of 'Covishield' as part of India's vaccine diplomacy. Seychelles and Mauritius will receive their first vaccine consignment later today. Stay tuned for more updates..

CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL COVERAGE ONLY ON DH

PM Modi trashes politics over vaccine, says he went by scientists' advice

Trashing politics over coronavirus vaccines and trying to allay fears, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the call on launching them was taken by scientists.

Read More

India will be role model on how to vaccinate billion people at scale, in trusted manner: Nandan Nilekani

Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani on Friday said with the ongoing efforts around the systematic rollout of Covid-19 vaccine to citizens, India will be a role model on how to vaccinate a billion people at scale and in a trusted manner.

Read More

Wil know whether Serum Institute of India fire was an accident or sabotage after probe, says Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said that whether the fire at the Serum Institute of India (SII) was an accident or sabotage will be known only after the probe gets over.

Read More

Maharashtra CM visits Serum Institute of India

The fire has no impact on the production of Covishield vaccine and no damage has occurred to the existing stock either: Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla

Woman healthcare worker dies in Gurgaon after receiving Covid-19 vaccine

Woman healthcare worker dies in Gurgaon in Haryana, days after she had received Covid-19 vaccine, but an official says that there is nothing yet to suggest any link with vaccination

Phase 1 trial results show Covaxin has tolerable safety, enhanced immunity: Lancet study

India's first indigenous vaccine against Covid-19, Covaxin, showed enhanced immune response without any serious side effects in the participants enrolled for the phase 1 trials, according to the results published inThe Lancet Infectious Disease journal.

Read More

Over 10 lakh beneficiaries vaccinated against Covid-19

Nearly 10.5 lakh beneficiaries have received anti-coronavirus shots under the countrywide Covid-19 vaccination exercise as on date, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.

Read More

Beijing launches mass testing to stem Covid-19 outbreak

Beijing on Friday kicked off a drive to test two million people in 48 hours as the city rushed to snuff out a new local cluster of cases believed to be linked to a more contagious virus variant.

Read More

President Joe Biden inherits a vaccine supply unlikely to grow before April

As the Biden administration takes power with a pledge to tame the most dire public health crisis in a century, one pillar of its strategy is to significantly increase the supply of Covid-19 vaccines.

But federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April because of lack of manufacturing capacity. The administration should first focus, experts say, on fixing the hodgepodge of state and local vaccination centers that has proved incapable of managing even the current flow of vaccines.

Read More

Airplane carrying vaccines begins journey to Mauritius

Nearly 10.5L beneficiaries vaccinated as of 6th day of vaccine drive

Indian vaccines being exported to Mauritius, Seyhelles

Amazon to open Covid-19 vaccination clinic at Seattle HQ on Sunday

Amazon Inc said on Thursday it will open a pop-up clinic in its Seattle headquarters on Jan. 24 with an aim to vaccinate 2,000 eligible members of the public against Covid-19 on the first day.

Amazon Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs Jay Carney, who announced the plan in a news conference with Washington Governor Jay Inslee, said a company executive will be working with Washington State's Vaccine Command Center.

The clinic will be hosted in partnership with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health.

Read More

Texas doctor accused of taking damaged vial of Covid-19 vaccine

A Houston area health department doctor accused by prosecutors of stealing nine doses of coronavirus vaccine from a damaged vial and administering them to family and friends insists he did nothing wrong and was only trying to ensure the vaccine was not wasted, his attorney said Thursday.

Authorities allege that Hasan Gokal, who worked for Harris County Public Health, stole a vial of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine while working at a vaccination site at a suburban Houston park on December 29. (AP)

Brazil awaiting 2 million vaccine doses from India

The Brazilian government said Thursday that a shipment of two million doses of the British AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine was finally set to arrive in the country from India.

The delivery Friday would be a much-needed boost to Brazil's vaccination program.

"The two million doses of AstraZeneca should arrive in Brazil Friday in the late afternoon," the ministry of health said in a statement. (AFP)

US vaccine shortages force cancellations, postponements

Some Covid-19 vaccination sites in New York City have begun cancelling or postponing shots or stopped making new appointments amid vaccine shortages around the US that President Joe Biden has vowed to turn around.

Smaller-than-expected deliveries from the federal government have caused frustration and confusion and limited states' ability to attack the outbreak that has killed over 4,00,000 Americans.

Over the past few days, authorities in California, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Hawaii warned that their supplies were running out.

Read More

2 health care workers admitted to hospital after receiving Covid-19 vaccine

Two health care workers were admitted to hospital as they reported Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI) after receiving jab of Covid-19 vaccine in Odisha, official sources said.

The condition of both the health care workers in Jagatsinghpur and Bargarh district was stated to be stable, they said on Thursday.

Read More

Covid vaccine diplomacy: Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan & Maldives get India’s shots

Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives have received India’s Covid-19 vaccines under grant assistance in sync with its “Neighbourhood First” policy.

India is one of the world's biggest drugmakers and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring the coronavirus vaccines.

Read More

China to donate 500,000 Covid-19 vaccines to Pakistan

China will donate 500,000 doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to Pakistan, the country's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Thursday.

It comes as the number of coronavirus cases surged to 527,146 in Pakistan, with over 11,000 deaths since the virus was first detected in February last year.

"Pakistan greatly appreciates the 500,000 doses of the vaccine gifted by China," foreign minister Qureshi tweeted.

Read More

PM Modi's govt set 'brilliant example' by providing vaccines to neighbours: Bangladesh minister

Countries in South Asia need to collaborate regionally and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has set a "brilliant example" by providing vaccines to India's neighbours, a Bangladeshi minister said on Thursday.

At a webinar, Bangladesh's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammad Shahriar Alam said the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was "failing to live up to the expectations" and expressed optimism over the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

Read More

India to begin commercial vaccine exports with shipments to Brazil, Morocco on January 22

India's government has cleared commercial exports of Covid-19 vaccines, with the first consignments to be shipped to Brazil and Morocco on Friday, the Indian foreign secretary told Reuters.

The shots developed by UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca and Oxford University are being manufactured at the Serum Institute of India, the world's biggest producer of vaccines, which has received orders from countries across the world.

Read More

Good morning readers! Welcome to our live coverage of coronavirus vaccine news updates