Britain has become first country to get vaccine for COVID-19 and will World gets first vaccine that will start the rollout procedure early next week.
“The government has today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare prodcuts Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for use,” the UK government was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“The vaccine will be made available across the UK from next week.” The UK government added
A big announcement by the European Microbiology EMBO who has selected has selected Indian scientist Dr.Debojyoti amonst thirty life scientists as EMBO Young Investigators.
“Most of my group are focused on basic research, but at the same time genome editing presents an opportunity to make our science directly applicable to society,” says Debojyoti by a tweet
During Press briefing on vaccination to entire population Dr Balram Bhargava , DG , ICMR said “Vaccination would depend on the efficacy of the vaccine & our purpose is to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission. If we’re able to vaccinate critical mass of people & break virus transmission, then we may not have to vaccinate the entire population.”
Health Ministry clarifies about recent complaints from Chennai based Volunteer against Serum Institute of India (SII) on Phase 3 clinical trials “Adverse event will not affect the timeline in any manner whatsoever.” Said Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Health Ministry
On enquiry in case some adverse event reported during the course of clinical trials Rajesh , Secretary, Health ministry said “Clinical trials are multi-centric & multi-site. Each site has an Institutional Ethics Committee, which is independent of manufacturer or govt. In case of any adverse event, this Committee takes note & gives its report to Drug Controller General of India.”
Serum Institute of India (SII) has also issued statement regarding safety issues of COVID-19 vaccine COVISHIELD
“The COVISHIELD vaccine is safe and immunogenic. The incident with the Chennai volunteer though highly unfortunate was in no way induced by the vaccine and the Serum Institute of India is sympathetic with the volunteer’s medical condition. However, we would like to clarify that all the requisite regulatory and ethical processes and guidelines were followed diligently and strictly. The concerned authorities were informed and the Principal Investigator, DSMB and the Ethics Committee independently cleared and reckoned it as a non-related issue to the vaccine trial. Post which we submitted all the reports and data related to the incident to the DCGI. It is only after we cleared all the required processes that we continued with the trials.” says the statement by SII
Serum Institute of India (SII) has also assured in a statement about vaccine safety and credibility ” We would want to assure everyone that the vaccine won’t be released for mass use unless it is proven immunogenic, and safe. Taking into consideration the complexities and existing misnomers about vaccination and immunisation; the legal notice was sent therefore to safeguard the reputation of the company which is being unfairly maligned.”
It’s reported not only in India but also several other countries that few patients who already tested positive and undergone for the Covid-19 treatment they again tested positive after few months.India has also reported such cases in Maharashtra , U.P and now in Delhi first time.The reinfection cases are rare but their is possibility for such cases. In Delhi a health worker who tested negative after Covid-19 treatment reported positive after few months with similar symptoms.
“A healthcare worker at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital who presented with symptoms suggestive of acute viral illness was tested positive for COVID 19 by RT PCR. Patient was initially admitted to COVID facility for 3 days but later patient was shifted to home quarantine for 17 days in view of mild nature of her illness. She was retested before rejoining work at hospital and was found to be negative for COVID 19. She resumed her daily activity and went back to her normal life. After 2 months, she developed a fresh episode of cough, generalised weakness and malaise. Patient was investigated and was found to be COVID 19 positive once again. She was readmitted in the COVID facility and tested negative in few days after being diagnosed. During the course patient was tested for COVID 19 antibodies but her antibody levels were negative.” Says the details from Sir Gangaram hospital
According to the details shared by Sir Gangaram hospital this wasn’t just a first case but in another case a patient was middle aged man and was also having diabetes mellitus.He got discharged after few days of treatment in a hospital, but after few days he started getting abdominal distension and again he got admitted in hospital.Before the treatment doctors suggested for Covid-19 testing that resulted positive again.
“Another patient, a middle aged man, who was a known case of diabetes mellitus, had liver involvement due to alcohol and renal involvement due to diabetes. He had nasal discharge and was subsequently found to have fungal infection of sinuses (mucormycosis) in addition to COVID 19 infection (RT PCR). He was treated with antifungal and other supportive medications and about 10 days later he was tested negative for COVID and discharged home. He was readmitted due to abdominal distension 25 days later and required hospitalization during which he was retested and found COVID 19 positive.” the details shared by the Sir Gangaram hospital
Dr. Atul Kakar, Senior consultant and Vice chairman of Department of Medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said “So far, re-infection with COVID has been considered as a rare possibility. Both these cases follow the defined criteria of re-infection. However, in ideal circumstances gene sequencing should have been done in both the cases. The antibody levels to COVID may have waxing weaning course, but maybe found upto 3 to 6 months post infection”.
However to confirm reinfection cases further more investigation is required . But this is also the fact that reinfection cases have been already reported many other state of India.
According to the Government of Delhi in 24 hours Delhi has recorded 3,726 new Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.Delhi has total number of COVID-19 cases are 5.70lakh.
However deaths are still highest Delhi has reported 108 deaths in 24 hours the death toll mounted to 9,174.
Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd(HMD), one of the largest manufacturers of disposable syringes in the world, HMD has shipped over 100 million pieces of KOJAK Auto disable syringes.
“HMD has shipped out more than 100 million pieces of 0.5 ml auto disable (AD) syringes for intra muscular injections to Covax facility and will soon send the next 40 million Syringes by December as the race for a ‘safe and effective’ vaccine against coronavirus infection is on the horizon.” said Mr. Rajiv Nath, Managing Director of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd.
WHO and UNICEF has also recommended disposable Syringe for mass vaccination. The drugmaker companies will do intramuscular vaccination which will be based on double dosage. The Union Health Minister has also assured about 300- 400million vaccines in the month of July-August 2021.
According to the statement released by HMD will produce 177.6 million 0.5ml KOJAK AD syringes for the Government of India to meet the targets“The front runner CoviD vaccines being launched in India would need a 0.5ml AD Syringe for intramuscular drug delivery we are informed. In addition to the annual procurement of 300-350 million of these syringes by GoI for the UIP (Universal Immunization Program) additional orders have been placed on us by MoH&FW. We are informed that MoH&FW is in discussion with their other 2 suppliers also to place additional orders or seek to pre-pone deliveries of already placed orders with them. HMD is on track to produce 177.6 million 0.5 ml KOJAK AD syringes for GOI by March 2021 and 60 million are already in our stock, awaiting dispatch instructions,” Said Rajiv Nath, MD, HMD
“HMD is gearing up to meet the Auto Disable Syringe demands which is the preferred mode of injection in public healthcare to ensure injection safety in addition to the private healthcare where standard disposable syringes usage is prevalent. We have requested the Govt. to provide us clarity on the various kinds of syringes required for the vaccine candidates under development as some of these would be by intradermal delivery ( via skin) or intranasal delivery (via the nose) or possibly oral delivery (via mouth). Each type would require a matching specialized syringe type. We need early intimation for boosting the capacities further. Syringe production is not like the production of PPE kits which can be easily ramped up. It requires precision-engineered multi-cavity molds, equipment and automation that have a lead time of 9 months to a year from reputed suppliers in Europe & Japan.” added Rajiv Nath
The U.S giant drug maker Pfizer and Moderna has announced about efficacy of 90-95%, another giant drug maker company AstraZeneca has announced efficacy of 60-70% in phase -3 clinical trials. India ‘s drug maker Serum Institute of India (SII) has tie-up with AstraZeneca that has announced 60-70% effective. It’s important to know about the efficacy.
How does efficacy work? What does efficacy means?
According to the experts the extent of protection against particular disease or infection is efficacy of that particular vaccine “The extent of protection from that particular disease is the ‘efficacy’ of the ‘vaccine’. So, for example, if we take two groups of people, say ten thousand in each group, and give one group the ‘vaccine’ injection and the other group a ‘placebo’ (meaning something simple, like normal saline) injection, and then simply follow up the two groups and count the numbers of cases of the disease as they occur. In the first, say, one hundred cases from both groups, if ninety five are in the ‘placebo’ group and only five are from the ‘vaccine’ group, then we could say that the protective efficacy of the ‘vaccine’ is more than ninety percent.” Said Dr Satyajit Rath, Immunologist ,IISER
“The more numbers of disease cases that are counted, the more reliable the evidence becomes. Also, the longer the cases are counted, the better the indication of how long protection lasts. While there is no hard and fast rule about what ‘percentage’ of vaccine efficacy should be considered useful, most people tend to think that fifty percent is a reasonable benchmark.” He added
According to the latest statement by the Union Minister of health and family welfare India will get vaccines in 3-4 months of time that will be given to 25-30 crore people of the country. in 2021.
“In the first 3-4 months of next year, there is a possibility that we will be able to provide vaccine to the people of the country. By July-August, we have a plan to provide vaccines to around 25-30 crore people & we are preparing accordingly.”Says Dr Harsh Vardhan , Union Health Minister
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi after visiting 3 Vaccine making companies on November 28, today he interacted via virtual meeting with 3 more and manufacturing vaccine for COVID-19 . These companies are Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd Hyderabad and Dr.Reddys Laboratories Ltd Hyderabad.
During the interaction, PM has appreciated the being taken by companies and scientists to come out with a vaccine solution to tackle COVID-19. He has also discussed about the suggestions and ideas regarding the regulatory processes and related matters.
“The PM advised all the departments concerned to engage with the manufacturers and seek to resolve matters so that the efforts by these companies bear fruit in order to serve the needs of the country and the entire world.”, the statement released by PMO
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