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Drugmakers rush to test whether vaccines stop coronavirus variant

The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage may be up to 70% more infectious and more of a concern for children. It has sown chaos in Britain, prompting a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with Europe and threatening to further isolate the island country.
Moderna expects immunity from its vaccine to protect against the variant and is performing more tests in coming weeks to confirm, the company said in a statement to CNN.

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GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo gears up for distribution of Covid-19 vaccines

“An infrastructure to handle the Covid-19 vaccine has been developed to enhance the capacity for handling the vaccine supply from and to Hyderabad. The dedicated work station has been set up at the terminals to handle this sensitive shipment of the vaccine. Temperature zone has been developed for maintaining the vaccine. The staff has been given special training to handle the shipment of vaccine right from the acceptance till the shipment reaches the destination,” said T. Purushottam Singh, General Manager, Head operations

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Delhi airport has a storage capacity of 2.7 million Covid-19 vaccine vials:CEO, Delhi International Airport

The Delhi airport has two cargo terminals with cool chambers where temperature can be set anywhere between -20 degrees Celsius to 25 degrees Celsius.
“We have a storage capacity of around 2.7 million vaccine vials at any moment of time. If we are able to conduct two rounds of distribution during a day, we can distribute 5.4 million vials daily,” . Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, the CEO of Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), said.
“These vaccines can come in an envirotainer which can be plugged in to keep the vaccines cool. We have made about 60 plug points where they can be plugged in and they can stay there at the same temperature,” Jaipuriar noted.

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India’s vaccination drive will be the largest in the world: Fitch

With a population of 1.3 billion (and 94 million over 65-year-olds), the domestic vaccination drive will be the largest in the world, said Fitch.

The country has a good track record of such drives with masses of the population regularly gaining inoculation for various diseases such as polio and cholera. India’s vaccine rollout will begin in Q1 2021 with frontline healthcare workers and individuals over the age of 50 years gaining priority.

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Asian business confidence gains steam, pandemic still top risk: Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey

“There’s a sense of optimism going forward,” said Antonio Fatas, Singapore-based economics professor at global business school INSEAD.“Things are getting better but they are getting better with still a dose of uncertainty. The effect of the crisis is very different across sectors,” he added, noting the weakness in the transport sector due to curbs on global travel.

Still, more than half the respondents polled flagged persistent cases of the novel coronavirus as well as the possible scarcity of vaccines in parts of the world – at least initially – as their biggest risk.

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New, more contagious coronavirus strain in UK does not appear to be deadlier: Vivek Murthy

“This news from the UK appears to be about a new strain of the virus that’s more transmissible, more contagious than the virus we’ve seen prior to this,” he said.

“While it seems to be more transmissible, we do not have evidence yet that this is a more deadly virus to an individual who acquires it,” Murthy told NBC News on Sunday.

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