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Govt plans dry run for Covid vaccine administration in 4 states next week
India has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorization in near future.
It includes AstraZeneca and Oxford university developed and Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited, ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila and Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V.
Scientists develop new gene therapy for deafness
“Children inheriting the defective gene from both parents are born with normal hearing, but they gradually lose their hearing during childhood. The mutation causes mislocalization of cell nuclei in the hair cells inside the cochlea of the inner ear, which serve as soundwave receptors and are essential for hearing. This defect leads to the degeneration and eventual death of hair cells,” said Professor Karen Avraham of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience.
US doctor has severe allergic reaction to Moderna vaccine, says report
A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official said last week that the US drug regulator is investigating around five allergic reactions that occurred after people were administered Pfizer and BioNTech SE’s coronavirus vaccine in America.
Meanwhile, amid the new coronavirus strain scare, Moderna has said that it expects the immunity induced by its Covid-19 vaccine would be protective against the variant reported in the UK.
First time since April, Mumbai’s Dharavi reports no new COVID-19 case
So far, 3,464 people have recovered in Dharavi, where 6.5 lakh people are crammed into shanty colonies spread over 2.5 square kilometers.
Delhi Police creates green corridor for heart patient
Traffic inspectors piloted the ambulance throughout the route of 18.5 km starting from Terminal-2 to AIIMS. It took 12 minutes for the vehicle to reach its destination, which would otherwise take anything between 35-40 minutes, the officer added.
Aurobindo Pharma to make COVAXX’s potential COVID-19 vaccine for India, UNICEF
COVAXX, a unit of privately-owned United Biomedical Inc, plans to pursue mid- and late-stage trials for the vaccine candidate from early 2021 in Asia, Latin America and the United States.
Massive cyberattacks that shook the world in 2020
The biggest of them perhaps came to light towards the end of the year when cybersecurity company FireEye earlier this month revealing that it became a target of hackers who accessed tools that the company uses to test its customers’ security.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, suspected Russian hackers installed a malware in the Orion software sold by the IT management company SolarWinds, and accessed sensitive data belonging to several US government agencies, at least one hospital and a university.
Serum Institute develops first indigenous vaccine against pneumonia; to be launched next week
The vaccine will be much more affordable than the existing ones produced by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, the sources said.
Since pneumonia is a respiratory ailment, vaccination of children with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) assumes utmost significance during the current Covid-19 pandemic, an official source said.
Studies find having Covid-19 may protect against reinfection
Researchers found that people with antibodies from natural infections were “at much lower risk … on the order of the same kind of protection you’d get from an effective vaccine,” of getting the virus again, said Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
“We don’t know how long-lasting this immunity is,”said Joshua Wolf, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis added. Cases of people getting Covid-19 more than once have been confirmed, so “people still need to protect themselves and others by preventing reinfection.” he said.
Another new coronavirus variant found in Nigeria, says Africa CDC
The news comes after Britain and South Africa both reported new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that appear to be more contagious, leading to new travel restrictions and turmoil in markets.
“It’s a separate lineage from the UK and the South African lineages,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told an online news conference from Addis Ababa.