With the total case tally of more than 13.5 million cases, India is now only behind the United States which has reported more than 31 million cases. With 13.4 million cases, Brazil is now at number three. The US’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to authorise the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19’s vaccine for adoloscents between the ages of 12 and 15 as early as next week, the New York Times reported. The official announcement is expected less than a month after the company found that its shot, which is already authorised for those over the age of 16, also protects younger people against the deadly infection. A report from South Korea stated a single dose of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines were found to be 86.6 per cent effective in preventing infections among people over the age of 60. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) showed that the Pfizer vaccine was about 89.7 per cent effective in preventing the disease two weeks after the first dose was administered. Canada recorded its first death linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday. The death was confirmed in the Canadian province of Alberta, where a woman in her 50s died soon after she received a dose of the vaccine, Reuters reported. In other news, the UK plans to offer a third Covid-19 vaccine jab to everyone over the age of 50 by autumn this year, in hopes of eradicating the threat posed by the pandemic entirely by Christmas, the Times newspaper reported. Meanwhile, countries around Europe have been ramping up their nationwide vaccination drives in recent weeks to drive forward reopening the economy.
On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden announced his plans to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of all adults in the country with at least one Covid-19 shot by the 4th of July weekend, when the country celebrates its Independence Day. “Now that we have the vaccine supply, we’re focused on convincing even more Americans to show up and get the vaccine that is available to them,” Biden said at a White House press briefing, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, India has so far given more than 100 million doses of two approved vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin. Sputnik V’s approval came as India overtook Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of cases globally. India aims to vaccinate 250 million “priority people” by the end of July. But experts say that the pace of vaccination has been slow and unless the drive is scaled up, the target could be missed. On Tuesday the government decided to give emergency approvals to vaccines already in use in other countries. It said the decision was taken to “expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and hasten the pace and coverage of vaccination”. This raises the speculation that vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna could become available for Indians.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is marketing the vaccine, has signed deals to produce more than 750 million doses of Sputnik V in India with six domestic vaccine makers, according to reports. Until then, India will mostly depend on two previously approved candidates, Covaxin and Covishield. Bharat Biotech, a 24 year old vaccine maker with a portfolio of 16 vaccines and exports to 123 countries, used a sample of the coronavirus, isolated by India’s National Institute of Virology. When administered, immune cells can still recognise the dead virus, prompting the immune system to make antibodies against the pandemic virus. Thus, Covaxin is an inactivated vaccine which means that it is made up of killed coronaviruses, making it safe to be injected into the body.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is being manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. It says it is producing more than 60 million doses a month. The vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus from chimpanzees. It has been modified to look more like coronavirus. International clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed that when people were given a half dose and then a full dose, effectiveness hit 90%.
Thus, the process might be lengthy and time consuming but the results are assuring, a little patience and proper measure is all that is needed to eradicate the deadly virus from this planet.
