Budget 2018-19

  The terms of the deals were renegotiated after Phase 3 clinical trial data showed vaccines from the two companies are more effective than some rivals Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines in their latest European Union supply contracts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The new price for the Pfizer shot was 19.50 euros ($23.15) against 15.50 euros previously, the newspaper said, citing portions of the contracts seen. The price of a  Moderna vaccine  was $25.50 a dose, the contracts showed, up from about 19 euros in the first procurement deal but lower than the previously agreed $28.50 because the order had grown, the report said, citing one official close to the matter. The terms of the deals —struck this year and covering up to 2.1 billion shots until 2023 —were renegotiated after Phase 3 clinical trial data showed vaccines from the two companies are more effective than some rivals, it said. The European Commission said on T...

  With millions of lives at stake amid a rapid spread of Covid-19, Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna said he hoped President Joe Biden would call the Pfizer CEO to let India produce its vaccine With millions of lives at stake amid a rapid spread of COVID-19, Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna said he hoped President Joe Biden would call the Pfizer CEO to let India produce its vaccine at least for six months or a year. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in the US House of Representatives, has been an ardent supporter of the move by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver of COVID-19 vaccines. “Allow India to develop that vaccine, and this is good in your own long-term interests. It’s good for the United States and our interests with the role with India and the rest of the world,” Khanna told the media. Major pharma companies like  Pfizer  and Moderna and organisations li...

  The Astra and Pfizer vaccines will be given in different orders and with two dosing intervals, four and 12 weeks apart. The University of Oxford is set to begin a trial combining Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer that could enable greater flexibility in the use of scarce supplies globally. The university will begin recruiting 820 participants over 50 years of age across eight UK sites this week, according to a statement Thursday. The Astra and  Pfizer vaccines  will be given in different orders and with two dosing intervals, four and 12 weeks apart. The trial will allow researchers to see whether two shots of different vaccines produce better or worse results than two doses of the same product. The study could be key to relieving pressure on individual vaccine makers to deliver shots if they run into manufacturing difficulties. Mixing vaccines to create an enhanced immune response is common for inoculations targeting diseases such as hepatitis A and B. Combi...

Ramaphosa said the vaccine would boost the fight against the pandemic South Africa has received the country’s first consignment of 1 million Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccines which arrived from the Serum Institute of India (SII). President Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President David Mabuza and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, among other officials, lined up on the tarmac of OR Tambo airport to welcome the vaccine cargo, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. Ramaphosa said the vaccine would boost the fight against the pandemic. “Today marks a major milestone in our fight against the coronavirus pandemic as we receive our first consignment of the   Coronavirus vaccine . This batch will benefit our healthcare workers who have been at the forefront of keeping us all safe,” Ramaphosa said. “We thank all South Africans and all the researchers who have contributed toward ensuring the successful development of the vaccine,” he added. The vaccination program was said to be organised and coo...

  The city’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and his deputy Suresh Kakani, who’s in charge of the vaccination drive, spoke in separate interviews this week India’s business and financial hub Mumbai, once the country’s coronavirus hotspot, is building facilities to store 10 million doses of the vaccine as it aims to open fully from a strict lockdown. The city’s Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and his deputy Suresh Kakani, who’s in charge of the vaccination drive, spoke in separate interviews this week before the start of a nationwide rollout on Saturday. Their responses are edited for clarity. Q. What’s the plan? Chahal:  Mumbai’s population that comes under the Municipal Corporation is about 15 million. We plan to create vaccine storage capacity of a little more than 10 million, which will be adequate as the vaccination will be done in phases. We have formed 500 teams, each having two vaccinators, two support staff and one security guard. They will initiall...

  Adar Poonawalla and Krishna Ella issue joint statement saying they would work together to roll out Covid-19 vaccine After engaging in a war of words, the chiefs of two of India’s leading vaccine makers — Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) — called a truce on Tuesday and pledged to work together for a “smooth roll-out” of Covid-19 vaccines. In a joint statement,  Bharat Biotech  Chairman and Managing Director Krishna Ella and SII Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla said the more important task in front of them was to save the lives and livelihoods of populations in India and the world. “Vaccines are a global public health good and they have the power to save lives and accelerate the return to economic normalcy at the earliest,” the statement read. “Now that two Covid-19 vaccines have been issued EUA (emergency use authorisation) in India, the focus is on manufacturing, supply, and distribution…Both companies are fully engaged in this activity and consi...

  Health personnel succh as doctors and nurses and frontline workers such as police personnel, home guards won’t have to register themselves online to get the vaccine The health ministry is prepared to roll out the Covid vaccine within 10 days of the emergency use authorisation, which was granted to two companies on January 3. While giving this information on Tuesday, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told reporters that the final date would be decided by the government. The roll-out is being planned, including the logistics and technology network, based on the feedback from the recent dry run of the vaccination process, according to Bhushan. Aadhar verification too will be a part of the online vaccine delivery platform Co-Win. Addressing the weekly briefing on Covid, Bhushan said health workers including doctors and nurses as well as frontline workers such as police personnel and home guards would not have to register on the online platform to get vaccinated. Their data has already ...

  The World Health Organization says it has cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use The World Health Organization says it has cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, meaning poorer countries may soon get access to the shot already available in Europe and North America. Every country that has a drug regulatory agency will have to issue its own approval for any COVID-19 vaccine, but countries with weak systems usually rely on WHO to vet the shots. The global body said late Thursday that the decision to issue its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine “opens the door for countries to expedite their own regulatory approval processes to import and administer the vaccine.” The UN health agency said its review found the  Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine , which has already received clearance in the United States, Britain, the European Union and a dozen other countries, “met the must-have criteria for safety and efficacy set o...

  If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk The new Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna seem to be remarkably good at preventing serious illness. But it’s unclear how well they will curb the spread of the coronavirus.That’s because the Pfizer and Moderna trials tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with Covid-19. That leaves open the possibility that some vaccinated people get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus — especially if they come in close contact with others or stop wearing masks. If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk.“A lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks anymore,” said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University. “It’s really going to be ...

  ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said that in the case of temporary licensure or emergency use, the regulator had to be satisfied with the risk-benefit ratio. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International (BBIL) had changed the dosage from 3 micrograms of antigen to 6 micrograms during its Covid-19 vaccine trial, a point that the subject expert committee (SEC) would closely examine when it meets on Wednesday to review its application for an emergency use authorisation (EUA) for Covaxin.The panel would also review the applications of Pfizer-BioNTech and Serum Institute of India (SII) seeking an EUA for their vaccines. While many have raised questions over BBIL applying for an EUA during an ongoing efficacy trial, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s apex health research institute, has defended the move. ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said that in the case of temporary licensure or emergency use, the regulator had to be satisfied with the risk-ben...

  The primary analysis, which included 196 cases, found the vaccine was 94.1 per cent effective, in line with preliminary findings released earlier this month. Moderna Inc plans to request clearance for its coronavirus vaccine in the United States and Europe on Monday, after a new analysis showed the vaccine was highly effective in preventing Covid-19, with no serious safety problems. The primary analysis, which included 196 cases, found the vaccine was 94.1 per cent effective, in line with preliminary findings released earlier this month. None of the participants in the trial who’d received the vaccine developed severe Covid-19. All 30 severe cases observed in the study occurred in participants who received placebo shots, according to a company statement. The shares extended their gains to as much as 12 per cent before US markets opened, hitting a record of $142.85. They have risen more than sixfold since the year began. The new results put the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biote...

  Britain formally asked its medical regulator, the MHRA, last week to assess the suitability of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Britain could give regulatory approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine this week, even before the United States authorises it, the Telegraph news site reported on Sunday. Citing government sources, it said British regulators were about to start a formal appraisal of the vaccine, made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, and that the National Health Service had been told to be ready to administer it by Dec. 1. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it would meet on Dec. 10 to discuss whether to authorise the vaccine. The UK Department of Health had no comment on Sunday on when the first vaccinations would be administered. A spokesman said the authorisation process by the medical regulator Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is independent of the government and will take as long as they need to review the final data fro...

  The European Commission will sign a deal to secure up to 300 million doses of the experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer The European Commission will sign a deal to secure up to 300 million doses of the experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU’s executive arm, said the commission will authorize the deal on Wednesday after working tirelessly to secure doses of potential vaccines in recent months. This is the most promising vaccine so far, von der Leyen said. Once this vaccine becomes available, our plan is to deploy it quickly, everywhere in Europe. Pfizer said Monday that early results from the vaccine suggests the shots may be a surprisingly robust 90% effective at preventing COVID-19. The European Commission had already secured three other deals with pharmaceutical companies allowing its 27 member states to buy nearly one billion doses of a potential  coronavirus vaccine. And...