Heena Sharma Blog

  Vaccine maker Novavax announced Thursday it has asked regulators in India, Indonesia and the Philippines to allow emergency use of its COVID-19 vaccine -- offering its shot to some low-income countries before rich ones with ample supplies. US-based Novavax partnered with the Serum Institute of India to apply in the three countries, and plans later this month to also seek the World Health Organization review needed to be part of the COVAX global vaccine programme. Novavax CEO Stanley Erck called the submissions an important step toward access to millions of doses of a safe and effective vaccine for countries with an urgent need to control the pandemic. The company announced it also plans to submit applications in Britain soon, followed by Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, but not in the US until later in the year. The Novavax two-dose shot is made with lab-grown copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. That's very different than other widely used ...

  Mizoram's COVID-19 tally rose to 42,083 on Thursday as 1,088 more people, including 167 children and 11 Assam Rifles personnel, tested positive for the infection, while one fresh fatality pushed the northeastern state's coronavirus death toll to 157, a health official said. Aizawl district registered the highest number of new cases at 900, followed by Kolasib (53) and Lawngtlai (44), he said, adding that the single-day positivity rate stood at 12 per cent, as fresh infections were detected in 10 of the 11 districts in the state. Four new patients have travel history, while 1,084 infections were detected during contact tracing, the official said. Mizoram now has 13,065 active cases, while 28,861 people have recovered from the infection to date, including 684 people on Wednesday. Read More

  China’s Lenovo-owned smartphone brand Motorola will launch Motorola Edge S Pro on Thursday. The new Motorola handset will be unveiled as the successor to the Motorola Edge S that was launched in January this year. The company shared a promotional video on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo. According to the teaser, the new device is going to be Motorola’s thinnest and lightest 5G smartphone, so far. As the name suggests, the all-new Edge S Pro is an upgraded version of the original Edge S model. The handset will be launched at 5 pm IST. Motorola Edge S Pro may be available in two different colors; midnight blue and indigo vegan leather. According to the company, the Motorola Edge S Pro will be 6.99 mm thick and will weigh 163 grams. What are the key features that the new Motorola smartphone is expected to have? Let’s take a look Display The phone will sport a 6.70-inch OLED display with at least a refresh rate of 144 Hertz. The smartphone will have a 576Hz touch...

  With the addition of 270 new cases of coronavirus , the infection count in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 5,45,549, an official said on Wednesday. Besides these new cases reported on Tuesday, the virus also claimed the lives of nine more people, which raised the death toll in the district to 11,056, he said. The COVID-19 mortality rate in the district stood at 2.02 per cent, he added. In neighbouring Palghar district, the COVID-19 case count has gone up to 1,33,464, while the death toll has reached 3,206, another official said. Read More

  The COVID-19 vaccination drive was suspended at civic and government-run centres in Mumbai on Wednesday due to paucity of vaccine doses, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the BMC said the inoculation drive will resume once it receives a fresh stock of vaccines. "Citizens of Mumbai are constantly informed about the vaccination, depending upon the stock of vaccines received, and an appropriate decision is taken," it said. This is the first time that the city civic authority has suspended the inoculation drive this month due to shortage of vaccines. Last month, it had suspended the vaccination drive in the city at least thrice because of the same reason. According to the BMC, so far 73,36,171 citizens have been inoculated in the metropolis. Out of them, 18,09,075 beneficiaries have received both the doses. Read More

  Digital assistant Amazon Alexa can now help users in India with COVID-19 -related information, including details of nearest testing centres and vaccination points as well as answer queries about inoculation. In 2020, Alexa was able to share information about COVID-19 related symptoms and cases in India, a statement said. Amazon Alexa is now updated with the latest COVID-19 related features for users in India. "Now, Alexa will be able to provide information about testing and vaccination centres, as well as information on vaccination availability, COVID-19 helpline numbers, details to contribute towards COVID-19 relief, and much more. The information is sourced from CoWIN portal, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website as well as MapmyIndia," the statement said. Amazon has teamed up with MapmyIndia to help users find the nearest COVID-19 testing centre along with the travel distance. Read More

  Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is effective against the Delta and Delta plus variant, a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology has said. The study released on Monday showed that Covaxin provides 65.2 per cent protection against the Delta variant which was first detected in India. The Delta variant which has spread to 99 countries is a variant of concern and was also responsible for the second wave in India. The Delta variant has also been identified as the leading cause of breakthrough infections globally among vaccinated individuals, the study said. The study said that a minor reduction in the neutralising antibody titer in Covid-19 recovered cases and full BBV152 vaccinated and post immunized infected cases was observed but the vaccine was found to be effective against the Delta, Delta AY.1 and B.1.617.3 variants. The study published as a pre-print on bioRxiv said that Sera of vaccines among Covid naïve recovered cases with full vacc...