Heena Sharma Blog

  Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines in their latest European Union supply contracts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The new price for the Pfizer shot was 19.50 euros ($23.15) against 15.50 euros previously, the newspaper said, citing portions of the contracts seen. The price of a Moderna vaccine was $25.50 a dose, the contracts showed, up from about 19 euros in the first procurement deal but lower than the previously agreed $28.50 because the order had grown, the report said, citing one official close to the matter. The terms of the deals —struck this year and covering up to 2.1 billion shots until 2023 —were renegotiated after Phase 3 clinical trial data showed vaccines from the two companies are more effective than some rivals, it said. The European Commission said on Tuesday that the EU is on course to hit a target of fully vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the adult population by the end of the summer. Read More

  EU privacy watchdog EDPB on Wednesday gave the Irish data protection agency a month to issue a long-delayed decision on compliance by Facebook's WhatsApp after its peers objected to its draft finding. The agency, which leads oversight of Facebook because the company's European headquarters are based in Ireland, has been investigating WhatsApp to see if it complies with transparency obligations specified by EU privacy rules known as GDPR. It sought feedback from its peers in December but was unable to find a consensus regarding its draft decision. The other national watchdogs objected to the type of infringements identified by the Irish, whether the specific data in question was personal data and the appropriateness of the proposed sanctions. The Irish agency said it would not follow the objections and referred them to the EDPB, which on Wednesday adopted a decision addressing the merits of the disagreements but did not provide details. Read More

  AstraZeneca has delivered 29.8 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to European Union (EU) member states in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021, just "a few doses away" from the promised 30 million, a European Commission spokesperson said. EU member states have received 67.5 million doses from BioNTech-Pfizer and 9.8 million doses from Moderna, Xinhua news agency quoted European Commission deputy chief spokesperson Dana Spinant as saying on Wednesday. These numbers are in line with those announced by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen on March 25, with 30 million doses promised by AstraZeneca, 60 million doses by BioNTech-Pfizer, and 10 million doses by Moderna. AstraZeneca's performance comes as a surprise after delays in production and deliveries from the British-Swedish vaccine manufacturer, which triggered vaccine export control by the EU. The company's vaccine is also under scrutiny as a few cases of blood clots subsequent to their vaccine...

European Union finally agrees on relief package: EU leaders Tuesday stitched together a consensus for a historic relief plan to support Europe out of the coronavirus crisis . As per the plan, European Commission, EU’s executive body, will borrow 750 billion euros ($857 billion) using its triple-A-rated debt, and disburse 390 billion euros ($446 billion) in grants and 360 billion euros ($412 billion) in cheap loans to its member nations. Let’s look at the global statistics Total Confirmed Cases: 14,714,500, Change Over Yesterday: 207,009 Total Deaths: 610,149 Total Recovered: 8,305,326 Nations hit with most cases: US (3,830,926), Brazil (2,118,646), India (1,155,338), Russia (782,040) and South Africa (373,628) Two early trials, one from the University of Oxford, and one from a group of researchers in Wuhan, have shown positive results. Both early trials showed efficacy in increasing the presence of antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that leads to Covid-19...

With new coronavirus cases being discovered in the country each day and panic among people also increasing, the government has proposed various measures to contain the spread of the disease. The latest steps in the fight against the pandemic come at a time when the number of positive cases in India has reached 125, with fresh cases being reported from Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Kerala and Telangana. In this edition of Business Standard podcast, we will discuss different measures taken by the government to control the outbreak. On Monday, a Group of Ministers (GoM) proposed various measures, including the closure of all educational and recreational institutions across the country. The government has also barred travellers from countries in the European Union, Turkey, the UK, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Malaysia from coming to India till March 31. Read More

The EU will not ban Chinese telecom giant Huawei in Europe, a top official said on Tuesday, despite intense pressure from Washington to shun the company over spying fears. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will officially unveil its recommendations on Wednesday, but commissioner Thierry Breton told MEPs that Brussels will choose tight scrutiny over any blanket ban. "It is not a question of discrimination it is a question of laying down rules. They will be strict, they will be demanding and of course we will welcome in Europe all operators who are willing to apply them," he said. Read More