As the vaccines reached Brazil early on Saturday, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said, “Made in India vaccines arrive in Brazil.”

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro thanked PM Narendra Modi for the vaccines and said, “Namaskar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Brazil feels honoured to have a great partner to overcome a global obstacle by joining efforts. Thank you for assisting us with the vaccine exports from India to Brazil. Dhanyavaad.”

To this, PM Modi replied, “The honour is ours, President Jair M. Bolsonaro to be a trusted partner of Brazil in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic together. We will continue to strengthen our cooperation on healthcare.”

Bolsonaro referred to the Covid-19 vaccine from India as ‘sanjeevni booti’ from Ramayana.

The Indian ambassador to Brazil said, “Today is a historic day in India-Brazil relations. Brazil is the first country to get such a consignment. PM Modi said we’ll make vaccine available to all countries and we’ll continue to work towards that and I wish you good luck in your efforts.”

Two flights, each carrying 2 million doses of Covishield vaccine, departed from the Mumbai airport for Brazil and Morocco in the early hours of Friday.

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

Since Wednesday, India has begun sending Covid-19 vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles.

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Out of the total cases, active cases further dropped to 2.08 lakh while recoveries went up to 1,02 crore. With 145 deaths reported on January 17, the toll stands at over 1.52 lakh. Kerala recorded 5,005 new cases, more than 36 percent of all. Maharashtra reported 3,081 cases.

Now the total caseload in the country has mounted to 1,05,71,773. The active cases tally in India stands at 2,08,012 and total recovered/discharged cases at 1,02,11,342.

On January 17, active cases declined below 2 percent of the total cases reported in the country for the first time. Daily new COVID-19 cases have stayed below the 20,000 mark from the last 10 days.

Over 2.24 lakh priority group individuals have been vaccinated at the end of two days of India’s mega inoculation drive. Out of the beneficiaries, only 447 adverse events cases have been reported, 3 of them required hospitalization, with 2 being discharged already, the Union Ministry said.

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Addressing the nation, PM Narendra Modi said, “India’s vaccines enjoy much credibility across the world . We’ve earned this via our track record. Most children in the world get their vaccine shots of those made in India. The world’s trust is on our Made in India vaccines will rise soon. These Indian vaccines are cheaper than foreign shots and easy to use. Some foreign doses are close to 5000/dose and to be stored in -70 degrees.”

PM lauded doctors and scientists who worked tirelessly to create the vaccine. He also stressed the importance of taking two doses of covid vaccine.

On the inaugural day, around 3,006 session sites across the country will be virtually connected. Around 100 beneficiaries would be vaccinated at each session.

India has two vaccine candidates so far — Covishield by Serum Institute of India and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved the vaccines for emergency use on January 2.

All states and UTs will have multiple session sites or centres at the district level. There will be a registration and waiting room, a vaccination zone and an observation room.

Once the beneficiary reaches the site at the designated time and date, they will produce identification documents. When they are verified, they will be sent to the vaccination room where they will receive the shot. After the shot, the beneficiary will have to wait in the observation room and will be under observation for 30 minutes. There are emergency kits and ambulances on site.

In the first phase, 30 crore health workers, frontline workers and senior citizens will be vaccinated. All the beneficiaries will be registered on the CoWIN app. Only beneficiaries who have registered on the app will be allowed to visit the centre

COWIN APP

The vaccination process will use the online digital platform developed by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that will help the authorities keep track in real-time of vaccination stocks, storage temperature and track the beneficiaries.

COVID-19 VACCINE HELPLINE

A 24X7 call centre has been established to answer queries about the coronavirus pandemic, vaccine rollout and the CoWIN software.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the pan-India inoculation of Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday at 10.30 am through video conferencing.

The coronavirus vaccination drive, one of the world’s largest vaccination programme, begins weeks after the DCGI approved Oxford coronvirus vaccine ‘Covishield’ manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute, and indigenously developed ‘Covaxin’ of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country.

In India, priority groups who are more exposed to the Covid-19 infection and are likely in the high-risk zone would be vaccinated first. Healthcare workers, both in the government and private sectors, including Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) workers, will receive the vaccine during this phase. Adequate doses of both Covishield and Covaxin have already been delivered to all states/UTs with the active support of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

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Dr V K Paul, a member(Health), NITI Aayog, said on Tuesday that Covishield of Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin are the two COVID-19 vaccines that have received Emergency Use Authorisation (EAU). He said that these vaccines are the safest vaccines and have been tested on thousands of people and side-effects are negligible.

The Union Health Ministry has said apart from Covishield and Covaxin, there are four more vaccines in the pipeline. Their manufacturers may soon apply for emergency use authorisation in India.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said Zydus Cadilla, Sputnik V, Biological E and Gennova are the COVID-19 vaccines that are in the pipeline and are currently in advanced clinical trials in Indian

About half a crore doses of Serum Institute of India (SII’s) Covishield vaccine were shipped out of Pune to cities across India on January 12, as the country launched its final phase of preparations for the mass inoculation drive against the novel coronavirus.

What one dose of Covid vaccines will cost in India?

Covishield: Rs 200 per dose (for first 100 million doses), Rs 1,000 per dose thereafter at private outlets
Covaxin: Rs 206 per dose
Pfizer-BioNTech: Rs 1,431 per dose
Moderna: Rs 2,348 to Rs 2,715 per dose
Sinopharm: less than Rs 5,650 per dose
Sinovac Biotech: Rs 1,027 per dose
Novavax: Rs 1,114 per dose
Gamaleya Centre: less than Rs 734 per dose
Johnson and Johnson: Rs 734 per dose

Meanwhile, India reported 15,968 new Covid-19 cases, 17,817 discharges and 202 deaths in last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry data. The total cases now stand at 1,04,95,147, active cases are 2,14,507 and overall recoveries is at 1,01,29,111. The total death toll is 1,51,529.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a total of 18,34,89,114 samples tested for Covid-19 till 12th January, of which 8,36,227 samples were tested on January 12.

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For private buyers, Covishield will be sold to at a higher price of Rs.1000 per dose.

Adar Poonawalla said that the first 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are being sold to the Indian government at a “special price” of Rs 200 per dose, after which prices would be higher.

The Indian government gave emergency authorisation to the Oxford University-AstraZeneca, but on the condition that SII doesn’t export the shots to ensure that vulnerable populations in India are protected.

He said that the company also has been barred from selling the vaccine on the private market. “We can only give (the vaccines) to the government of India at the moment,” Adar Poonawalla said.

Adar Poonawalla added that the Serum Institute was in the process of signing a larger contract with Covax for 300 million-400 million doses of the vaccine.

Covax is an initiative created to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines set up by the World Health Organization, vaccines alliance GAVI and CEPI, a global coalition to fight epidemics.

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Now, the total cases in the country stands at 93,92,920.

With 496 deaths in a day, the toll has mounted to 1,36,696. The country has 4,53,956 active cases of coronavirus, the Union health ministry said on Sunday.

In the past 24 hours, 42,298 patients were discharged across the country, taking the total recovered patients to 88,02,267.

The total number of samples tested up to Saturday stood at 13,95,03,803, including 12,83,449 samples tested yesterday itself, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Sunday.

The ICMR has also approved a “simple and fast method for Covid-19 testing, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said on Saturday. This method can not only increase the number of RT-PCR tests, but can also bring down costs, the CSIR said.

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla said that the Pune-based pharma company is in the process of applying for emergency use authorisation of ‘Covishield’ in the next two weeks.

‘Covishield’ is the experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca in affiliation with the SII.

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The total coronavirus cases mounted to 83,64,086 and the deaths have climbed to 1,24,315 with the virus claiming 704 lives in the last 24 hours in the country.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate was recorded at 1.49 percent. So far, there are 5,27,962 active cases of COVID-19 which comprises 6.31 percent of the total caseload.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 11,42,08,384 samples have been tested up to November 4, with 12,09,425 samples being tested on November 5.

Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer (CEO) of Pune-based pharmaceutical company Serum Institute of India (SII) said that the covid vaccine is likely to be available in the country by January 2021 provided approvals from regulatory bodies are in place and only if its proven immunogenic and efficacious.

The SII is working in collaboration with British- Sweden pharma major AstraZeneca to produce the potential covid-19 vaccine Covishield.

The CEO of the world’s largest drug manufacturing firm also said that the firm is in talks with the government over the pricing of the vaccine and assured that it will be available at a reasonable price.

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The Hyderabad-based firm is planning to test over 20,000 volunteers across 12-14 states.

Covaxin, developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, is an inactivated vaccine that is expected to work by injecting the “killed version” of the covid-19 virus into the body to develop an immune response.

Bharat Biotech plans to enroll 25,000 to 26,000 participants across the country, including Telengana, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Maharashtra and Bihar.

As of now Bharath Biotech and Serum Institute of India(SII) got the nod to conduct phase-3 trials. SII is said to be in the process of recruiting and vaccinating participants for the third phase of testing its candidate, Covishield.

Other vaccine candidates in the fray are those of Zydus Cadila, which is close to completing phase-2 trials of ZyCov-D, and of Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, which will soon begin phase 2/3 trials of Sputnik V in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s.

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The phase-III human clinical trial began at the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune on September 17. King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in Mumbai on September 23 began the phase II and III trials of the coronavirus vaccine.

Some participants in the trials for the coronavirus vaccine have also received their second doses and have not reported any adverse side-effects.

However, some did develop a fever after the dose of the coronavirus vaccine, but top scientists said that those are mild reactions and should not be worried about.

Some investigators also said that developing a fever is considered a common and mild side-effect of vaccines.

In September, Aztra Zeneca Plc said it has paused a late-stage trial of one of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates after an unexplained illness in a study participant. After reviews the safety of the vaccine and its procedures, the human trials were resumed.

The Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) has partnered with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca for manufacturing the coronavirus vaccine candidate, being developed by the University of Oxford, UK.

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