-IndiaToday.in In the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, most people do not have smartphones or proper access to the internet. The mandatory online registration for Covid-19 vaccination has made INOculation inaccessible for this belt. India’s vaccination policy mandates that all in the age group of 18 to 44 register themselves in advance using the CoWIN website, Aarogya Setu app or Umang app in order to get vaccinated against Covid-19. No walk-in vaccinations...

-Financial Express If patents continue to determine global access to vaccines and drugs, then fighting Covid-19 will remain a distant dream for most countries Vaccines are badly required by the world, as are drugs like Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, and medical equipment like ventilators and oxygen concentrators. A large number of countries, particularly low- and middle-income ones, are struggling to access vaccines, drugs and equipment. There cannot be a more important occasion than the...

-The Telegraph India on Thursday recorded more than 379,000 new infections and 3,645 deaths, raising the total of active case to more than 3 million India’s research community on Thursday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release data on the patterns and severity of the Covid-19 infections amid concerns that the Centre had withheld information that could guide effective responses to the epidemic. A group of over 200 scientists and medical researchers, in...

-The Hindu Over the last few decades, intellectual property rules have served as a lethal barrier to the right to access healthcare Even an unprecedented pandemic can do little, it appears, to upset the existing global regime governing monopoly rights over the production and distribution of life-saving drugs. If anything, since the onset of COVID-19, we’ve only seen a reaffirmation of intellectual property rules that have served as a lethal barrier to...

-The Indian Express This, despite it being contract-manufactured by Pune’s Serum Institute of India whose CEO Adar Poonawalla had said that the firm was making a profit even at a price of Rs 150 per dose. At Rs 600 per dose, Indians getting INOculated with Covishield at private hospitals from May 1 could end up paying the highest price in the world for this vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and...