"coronavirus-vaccine"

AstraZeneca said it is yet to be fully determined whether the vaccine protects against severe disease caused by the highly transmissible coronavirus variant found in South Africa.

According to his family members, Pratap Ram had undergone a heart surgery in 2007 and a stent was implanted. But, since then he did not have any problem.

Bahrain had earlier approved Covishield to support its efforts towards vaccinating members at risk of developing complications from COVID-19.

Reiterating his ambitious goal of 100 million shots in 100 days, he said the end goal is to beat COVID-19.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa told the Cabinet that the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo informed that India would be sending 500,000 vaccines to Sri Lanka and they will arrive here on January 28.

A total of 2 million doses of the Covishield vaccine, by Serum Institute of India, has been dispatched from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to Dhaka.

Earlier on Saturday, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation made recommendations to the Drugs Controller General of India to grant permission

The application will be sent to Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) V.G. Somani for final approval

On the other hand, India's forex reserves continued to rise, indicating, an active Reserve Bank which has kept rupee in a check, to make exports competitive.

"In India, we have agreements with four large manufacturers. ...India will produce about 300 million doses or more of the vaccine for us next year," he was quoted as saying to Rossiya 24 TV channel by TASS news agency on Thursday.

It also said that protective level of antibodies generally develop two weeks after receiving the second dose.

Sputnik V, the world's first COVID-19 vaccine, is over 95 per cent effective, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

The European Union is under massive pressure to approve potential vaccines after Britain and the United States began rolling out a drug produced by Pfizer and BioNtech.

In the past week, the US, the worst-hit nation, has reported an average of more than 215,000 new infections a day.

Stressing the vaccine had a "strong safety profile", biotech firm CSL said: "The potential for this cross-reaction had been anticipated prior to the commencement of the trial".

Bahrain plans to inoculate everyone 18 years and older in the kingdom at 27 different medical facilities, hoping to be able to vaccinate 10,000 people a day.

With northern hemisphere countries hit by a pandemic winter surge, Britain this week became the first Western country to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

According to the experts, warning against alcohol consumption that has been issued is a general immune-boosting measure rather than as a specific contraindication or interaction with the vaccine.

Pfizer's mRNA technology-based vaccine has an efficacy of over 90 per cent with a double dose and 67 per cent with a single dose. It, however, requires minus 70 degrees Celsius, which does not match India's cold storage facilities.

Britain on Wednesday gave emergency approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, with health officials set to use criteria based on age and vulnerability to decide the order of people to receive it.