Category:

Non-Life

Latest

AstraZeneca says its vaccine should be effective against new coronavirus variant

“AZD1222 (AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate) contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, and the changes to the genetic code seen in this new viral strain do not appear to change the structure of the spike protein,” an AstraZeneca representative said in an email.
India is likely to approve Oxford/AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use by next week after its local manufacturer submitted additional data sought by authorities, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

read more

Rules to stop coronavirus variant stoke chaos at Indian airports

India’s hardest-hit state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, has taken additional measures, quarantining most passengers arriving from Europe and the Middle East for a week. Many European and Middle Eastern countries have also suspended flights from Britain, but act as transit hubs for the big airlines flying into India.
India’s plan to track down and screen all arrivals from Britain since Nov. 25 is also getting stretched.

read more

People who are infected should also take vaccine: Bharat Biotech Chairman

Talking about the company’s efficacy trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, Bharat BiotechChairman & MD Krishna Ella said on Wednesday. said that for the efficacy trials the company has taken 24 centres all over the country so that it has tier I ,tierIIand tier III cities to capture the efficacy in a better way.

On the distribution of vaccines in India, he said India is well prepared for that and Indian immunisation system is very robust, Ella said.

read more

UK identifies new South African coronavirus variant tightens lockdown

Like the UK variant identified earlier, the new variant of the novel coronavirus is also driving a massive resurgence of the disease in South Africa, with experts warning the country is probably facing a much larger second wave.

“Both cases of the new variant are contacts of cases who have travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks,” Hancock said, addressing a briefing from 10 Downing Street.

“This new variant is highly concerning because it is yet more transmissible and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant that has been discovered in the UK,” he said.

read more

Families of Italian Covid-19 victims seek $122 million from government

The lawsuit is being brought by members of a committee called “Noi Denunceremo” (we will go to court), set up in April to represent the relatives of people who died in Bergamo, one of Lombardy’s worst-affected cities.

The civil lawsuit, which the plaintiffs presented to a Rome court, is against Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Health Minister Roberto Speranza and the governor of the northerly Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana.

Italy, the first Western country hit by the coronavirus, has reported seen more than 70,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the outbreak emerged in February, the highest toll in Europe and the fifth-highest in the world. The hardest-hit region is Lombardy, where the first COVID-19 patient was detected on Feb. 20.

read more

Mauritius shipping disaster caused by lack of attention to safety – owner

There was a lack of awareness of the dangers of navigating close to the coast … and insufficient implementation of regulations that must be observed in order to safely execute voyages,” the company said, based on its interviews with crew members.

The company will ban private use of cell phones during working hours on bridges and install high-speed communications systems on all its ships, as well beef up training, it said.

read more

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.

read more

Supplying enough Covid-19 vaccines for half the country’s nearly 1.4 billion people can be daunting:Bharat Biotech

“We have started producing at risk because we know that it will be an uphill task — in the Indian context it’s small,” Ella said in an interview from Hyderabad on Monday. “That’s a huge challenge in front of us when we think of the hundreds of millions of doses even if half the country needs to be vaccinated.”

read more

Gas pipeline blast kills one, destroys houses in Gujarat

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.

It was not immediately clear who ran the pipeline – state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) denied media reports that it was the operator. Local company Sabarmati Gas, partly-owned by Bharat Petroleum Corp, also said it was not involved.The massive explosion destroyed two houses in a residential area near ONGC’s Kalol field in Gandhinagar district, trapping people under the debris, officials said.

Senior Gandhinagar official Kuldeep Arya told Reuters a gas leakage could have triggered the blast.

read more