-The Hindu Current price negotiated through bulk orders may not be replicable: Finance Secy The first lot of vaccines were procured by the Centre using PM CARES funds at a higher rate than the subsequent rounds paid for by budgetary allocations, The Hindu has learnt from the response to a Right to Information request by a transparency activist. The Health Ministry response said that the initial 5.6 crore doses of Covishield were bought...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-The Hindu 12 Republican lawmakers write a seven-page letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on the issue U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he had not made a decision on whether the U.S. would support an Indian and South African initiative at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to waive Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to facilitate the production of COVID-19 related vaccines and therapeutics around the world. “Well, we’re...

-The Telegraph Centre’s revised policy has more than doubled the population of potential beneficiaries without immediate provisions for the extra doses needed India is likely to face extreme shortages of Covid-19 vaccines if all adults eligible for vaccination begin queuing up for the jabs from May 1, health and industry experts have said. The Centre’s revised vaccination policy has more than doubled the population of potential vaccine beneficiaries without immediate provisions for the...

-Hindustan Times The announcement by Joe Biden comes close on the heels of the United States agreeing to provide India with raw materials needed for producing the Covishield vaccine and supply equipment such as ventilators and oxygen generation gear to support the country’s response to a massive surge in Covid-19 cases. US President Joe Biden on Monday took to Twitter to say that his administration is determined for India to tide over...