Coronavirus updates: Maharashtra reports 59,907 new cases, highest spike ever

(ANI)

A British trial of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on children has been paused, Oxford University said Tuesday, as global regulators rush to assess its possible link to rare blood clots in adults. The university, which helped develop the embattled vaccine, said in a statement that there were "no safety concerns" in the trial, but acknowledged fears over a potential link to clots by saying that it was awaiting additional data from Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before restarting the study.

Even though the Centre has been repeatedly saying there is no shortage of doses, the Covid-19 vaccination programme is set to grind to a halt in Gondia district on Wednesday, as it has no stock remaining after Tuesday’s programme, district officials said. Meanwhile, Akola, Yavatmal, Buldhana, and Washim, all in Amravati division, along with Nagpur Rural and the city’s Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), have enough stock to last only one more day. They will stop vaccinating recipients from Thursday. Stating this, a state official said the Centre is not replenishing vaccine stock continuously.

Medical experts have now suggested use of the anti-viral remdesivir in eligible home-isolated Covid patients, who are not admitted to hospitals. Currently, the drug is given only to hospitalized patients. At a recent meeting with the Pune Covid task force and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health officials, members of the Indian Medical Association said remdesivir can be given to carefully selected home-isolated patients on an OPD basis either at clinics or hospitals.

The vaccination policy is based on scientific principles and is intended to secure vulnerable population first keeping in mind vaccine supplies and is no different from the approaches adopted even by developed countries like the US, the UK and Australia, the Centre said on Tuesday. Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in an interview to ANI, also clarified his remarks that the objective of vaccination is to inoculate those who need and not those who want it after the comments kicked up a controversy online with several commentators wondering how such a distinction can be drawn and whether the government was tied down by an overly bureaucratic approach.

As the second wave of the pandemic intensifies, doctors say there is a group of patients who despite displaying classic Covid-19 symptoms is testing negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The reasons range from poor collection of swab samples, delayed testing after the appearance of the first symptoms or variants that have possibly changed the disease patterns. Dr Pratit Samdhani from the state-run JJ Hospital, Byculla, said there are definitely some patients who are not testing positive despite having symptoms such as fever, cough and body ache.

Expressing concern over the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday asked the state government to examine the viability of imposing a night curfew to check late evening social gatherings. A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Siddhartha Varma passed the direction while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh. "Though the state government has taken necessary steps to meet the threat of the second wave of Covid-19, it is noticed that the directions given by the state have not been complied with by the public at large and that is an issue of concern," the bench observed.

With India reporting 96,982 cases new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the country has over 7.8 lakh active cases. According to the union health ministry, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country has reached 1,26,86,049. With 446 new deaths, the death toll in India has gone up to 1,65,547. Furthermore, 50,143 people were discharged after recovery on Monday, taking the nationwide recovery tally to 1,17,32,279.