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Health

Poorer countries to get 120 million $5 coronavirus tests, WHO says

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the manufacturers Abbott and SD Biosensor had agreed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “make 120 million of these new, highly portable and easy-to-use rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests available over a period of six months”.

“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have laboratory facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out tests,” Tedros said.

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 Health ministry launches web portal for updates on COVID-19 vaccine development

“The data will serve as an invaluable tool for formulating appropriate patient management strategies, predicting disease severity, patient outcomes etc,” the ICMR said in a statement.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, said, “The portal provides useful and important information related to vaccine development, ongoing clinical trials and progress made in this area locally and globally at regular intervals. Today, in the times of coronavirus pandemic, vaccine development is watched very closely. Thus, it becomes important to showcase the status of vaccine development in the country.”

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Travellers from Dubai, UK mainly behind Covid importation into India: Study

The study has also found that infected cases from Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh played less role in spreading the disease outside their communities. Whereas infected people in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, and Karnataka played a significant role in the local transmission, and some of them caused interstate transfer too.

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Lloyd’s of London alerts India Inc on rising “Intangible Risks”, launches new solutions for Pandemic Risks 

Specific to SMEs, Lloyd’s has developed ReStart, a potential non-damage business interruption solution (loss of revenue without a physical damage trigger) for future waves of COVID-19. The solution is focused on giving certainty of non-damage business interruption coverage initially to SMEs by pooling limited capacity across a number of Lloyd’s market participants. The product will support reopening of SMEs, offering a range of limits that ensure it is affordable for customers, without requiring any government support,

Lloyd’s is also working on a proposed ‘after the event’ insurance product framework, Recover Re, which would provide immediate relief and cover for non-damage business interruption, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, over the long-term. This framework could be implemented in any country where the government has the resources and industry commitment to support it.

 

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