Talks between the government and the company are on for import of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The government is likely to grant indemnity but is not too keen to give in on legal jurisdiction
As the country reels under the severe impact of the second wave of Covid, key states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Chhattisgarh and the capital city Delhi are getting lower vaccine doses than they require, suggests a latest report by State Bank of India s (SBI s) economic wing, authored by Dr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, their group chief economic adviser. Given that vaccination could be the only driver as of now to contain the disease, SBI s economic wing did an disaggregated analysis to estimate the ideal share of each State in total vaccines based on distribution parameters including population over 18 years, total deaths, Covid cases and deaths in States and juxtaposed it with the vaccine distribution.
Cost of vaccinating India s entire population above 18 years 0.36% of GDP: India Ratings and Research
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Cost of vaccinating India s entire population above 18 years 0.36% of GDP: India Ratings and ResearchBy
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Out of the Rs 46,323 lakh crore that the states would have to spend on vaccinating those in the 18-44 age group, the highest burden would fall on Bihar at 0.6% of gross state domestic product (GSDP), followed by Uttar Pradesh at 0.47% and Jharkhand at 0.37% of GSDP each.
The Centre had already spent Rs 5,090 crore on procuring 214 million doses from SII in two batches at a cost of Rs 236 and Rs 244 per dose, respectively.
Mutant UK Covid-19 Strain May Force Serum Institute to Tweak Vaccine Composition
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Serum Institute of India may have to make adjustments in the composition of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and British pharma major AstraZeneca after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) expressed concerns over the effectiveness of the vaccine against the South African mutant coronavirus strain.
According to a report by Mint, on Monday and Tuesday, SAGE reviewed the evidence on the vaccine’s effectiveness on new SARS CoV-2 variants, before making significant recommendations.
Earlier, South Africa decided to stop the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after preliminary clinical trial findings published by the Wits Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit indicated that it offered minimal protection against the mild-moderate Covid-19 infection from the B.1.351 variant of the coronav