The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved a testing kit for detecting the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The kit is manufactured by Tata Medical and Diagnostics and is named OmiSure.
The RT-PCR kit, Omisure, was earlier sent to the ICMR for approval after continued testing. The kit will be used to confirm the Omicron in patients with its S-Gene Target Failure (SGTF) strategy.
The Union Health Ministry on Monday confirmed the first death linked to the highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Omicron, in the country.
Joint secretary of the Ministry Lav Aggarwal said the death of an elderly person with comorbidities, including diabetes, had been reported from Rajasthan and that this was “technically” a Omicron-related death.
India began the new year by handing over half a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan on Saturday. The consignment is part of a million-strong vaccine supply that will be completed within the coming weeks, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has said. It will be one of the largest-ever humanitarian assistance projects from India to Afghanistan consisting of wheat and other medicines to be organised in coordination with U.N. agencies.
India has approved two more vaccines under emergency use authorisation and an antiviral drug, Molnupiravir, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted on Tuesday. Currently, India uses Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V in its vaccination programme.
Corbevax to be made by Hyderabad-based Biological-E is a protein sub-unit vaccine and Covovax, to be manufactured by Serum Institute of India, Pune, is a nanoparticle-based vaccine.
Corbevax is co-developed by Biological E, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, United States, and American company Dynavax Technologies.
Covovax is produced by the Serum Institute of India under licence from Novavax, a U.S.-based biotechnology company. Covovax has been approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) under its Emergency Use Listing and, therefore, will also be available globally as part of the COVAX initiative to ensure that at least 40% of world is vaccinated on priority.
Molnupiravir, that was approved this month by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (U.S. FDA), on the heels of Paxlovid by Pfizer Inc, is said to be a promising drug for those with mild and moderate disease and also easily administered as a pill. Thirteen companies in India are set to manufacture this drug. It has been approved under emergency use authorisation for treating adults with COVID-19 “who have high risk of progression to disease”.
Serum Institute of India has sent doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia, in its first export of the Novavax shot through the COVAX network, Central Government said on Wednesday.
The world’s biggest vaccine maker exported 137,500 doses of Covovax, as it calls the shot, to the Southeast Asian country last week.
Researchers at IIT Guwahati have developed a nanotechnology-based coating which can be applied on regular cotton and silk masks. The end result provides greater protection against COVID-19 at a lower cost and higher breathability than N-95 masks, they said in a paper recently published in the ACS Applied Biomaterials journal.
The Indian government has permitted export of 5 crore doses of Covovax, a COVID-19 vaccine domestically produced here by the Serum Institute of India (SII), as the jab has not yet been approved for emergency use in the country, official sources said on Monday.
The drug major SII has been allowed to export 50 lakh vials, equivalent to 5 crore doses, of Covovax to Indonesia, they said.
India’s first COVID-19 victims’ memorial was inaugurated at Rajannapet village in the district by Project Madad, which is a voluntary group of Indian and Indian diaspora doctors and professionals, on Thursday, a press release said.
The memorial was installed at Rajannapet alongside a marker of the village’s COVID resilience.
Telangana
Among the 96 countries are Canada, the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Bangladesh, Mali, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Angola, Nigeria, Benin, Chad, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Moldova, Albania, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Austria, Montenegro, and Iceland.
Eswatini, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Kyrgyz Republic, Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Georgia, Andorra, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Maldives, Comoros, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Peru, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Brazil have also agreed to mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccination certificates with India.
Guyana, Antigua & Barbuda, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Columbia, Trinidad & Tobago, Commonwealth of Dominica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nepal, Iran, Lebanon, State of Palestine, Syria, South Sudan, Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Australia, Mongolia, and Philippines are the other countries.