Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: A 42-year-old volunteer from Bhopal died nearly ten days after he participated in the clinical trial for Covaxin; poisoning is suspected but officials said that the exact cause of the death will be known after viscera test
Coronavirus News LATEST Updates: A 42-year-old volunteer from Bhopal died nearly ten days after he participated in the clinical trial for Covaxin held at a private hospital, its vice chancellor said on Saturday while a government official suspected poisoning but added that the exact cause of the death will be known after viscera test.
Addressing reports of the death, Bharat Biotech issued a statement saying that the volunteer had been reported "healthy" during follow-up calls for seven days after the jab.
"The volunteer, at the time of enrolment, had fulfilled all the inclusion and exclusion criteria to be accepted as a participant in the Phase III trial and was reported to be healthy in all the site follow up calls post 7 days of his dosing and no AE’s were observed or reported," the statement said,
Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said coronavirus vaccination roll-out will start soon in India, and the country will also work towards making low-cost, safe and effective vaccines available to the entire world.
Addressing the 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention 2021, he said after months of collaborative brainstorming and building upon vaccine distribution expertise, India has streamlined the COVID-19 vaccination process.
"India has finally built a state-of-the-art digital platform for COVID-19 vaccine delivery called CoWIN. A critical part of our strategy involves maintaining confidence in the safety of vaccines in the possibility of adverse events following immunisation," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 in the country along with the preparedness of the State/UTs for COVID vaccination. The meeting was attended by Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Health Secretary, and other senior officials concerned.
"The Prime Minister took a detailed and comprehensive review of status of COVID management covering various issues. Emergency Use Authorisation or Accelerated Approval has been granted by the National Regulator for two vaccines (Covishield and Covaxin) which have established safety and immunogenicity. The PM was also briefed about the preparedness status of the Centre in close collaboration with the State and UT governments for roll out of the vaccine in the near future," the press release said.
The COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country will kick off on 16 January, 2021 after the forthcoming festivals including Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Magh Bihu, among others, the Centre said in a press release on Saturday.
"The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine will provide priority to the healthcare workers and the frontline workers who are estimated to be around 3 cr, followed by those above 50 years of age and the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crore," the release said.
A total of 78.89 percent of the new COVID-19 recoveries were reported in ten states and Union Territories, according to the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) on Saturday.
The gap between recovered cases and active cases is steadily increasing and presently stands at 9,832,461, the health ministry said.
The prime minister lauded India's fight against COVID-19 and said it was among the countries with the lowest fatality rate and the highest recovery rate.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 18,02,53,315 COVID-19 samples have been tested so far — while 9,16,951 of them being tested on Friday alone.
After a small rise on Friday, the active number of cases in India declined to 2,24,190 in the past 24 hours. According to the Union health ministry, the active cases comprise 2.16 percent of the total caseload as on Saturday.
Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) convention, a flagship event of the Ministry of External Affairs to engage and connect with the overseas Indians.
India registered 18,222 fresh infections of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours taking the overall count to 1,04,31,639, said the Union health ministry on Saturday.
With 228 new fatalities due to the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 toll in the country climbed to 1,50,798 on Saturday, said the health ministry.
According to the Directorate of Press and Information, among the people who have been identified by the EDMC for vaccination in the first phase are safai karamcharis, health workers, public health workers, engineers, property tax department employees, horticulture and community service departments employees.
About 23,000 employees of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has been identified in the category of "frontline workers" for vaccination against COVID-19, officials said on Friday.
Several employees of civic bodies in Delhi had contracted the coronavirus infection in 2020.
The EDMC has submitted its list of frontline workers in view of the preparations for the vaccination, it said in a statement.
About 23,000 employees of the EDMC who have been serving the people since the outbreak of the pandemic have been listed on the government's portal CoWin for vaccination, the statement said.
As part of the first phase, about three lakh healthcare workers and nearly six lakh frontline workers, totalling about nine lakh, will be get vaccine against COVID-19 in Delhi.
