I had a constructive call with Mihail Murashko (Mikhail Murashko), Russia's Health Minister, about the Covid19 response globally & in Russia, as well as about the Sputnik V vaccine & the WHO Emergency Use Listing process for vaccines.
Initial results from France, Germany and several other countries have shown that trained sniffer dogs are able to recognise people with Covid-19 infections.
India this week announced that it will send COVID-19 vaccines under grant assistance to Sri Lanka and seven other countries - Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Seychelles, Afghanistan and Mauritius.
The WHO had granted emergency use validation for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on December 31, 2020, opening the door for countries to expedite their own regulatory approval processes to import and administer the vaccine.
While many countries rely on their own regulatory systems for vaccine approvals, some countries with weak system depend on WHO's nod to a great extent for rolling out their national vaccination programmes.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a bitter conflict over Karabakh since Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of the mountainous province in a 1990s war that left 30,000 people dead.
