Coronavirus: Amid reports of vaccine shortage, finance minister says Centre will take care of states

10.45 pm: Mumbai reports 661 new Covid-19 cases and 21 deaths on Thursday.

10.39 pm: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman says all states are allotted vaccine doses according to their population, ANI reports. “Centre supplies vaccines well in advance to the states,” she says amid reports of shortages. “All states will be taken care of. I wish to assure that everybody will be vaccinated.”

8.11 pm: Karnataka makes it mandatory for passengers travelling to the state from Kerala to produce negative RT-PCR test certificates not older than 72 hours, ANI reports.

8.03 pm: Swaminathan adds that the World Health Organization is holding talks with European Medicines Agency to include Covishield in the European Union’s vaccine passports, according to NDTV.

She also says that WHO is likely to make its decision on granting approval to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin by the second week of August.

8 pm: World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan tells NDTV that the “Delta plus” variant of Covid-19 is not a “variant of concern” for the global health agency presently as the number of cases of the strain are still low.

5.26 pm: Cadila Healthcare Managing Director Sharvil Patel speaks about the company’s Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, reports ANI.

“We expect to produce one crore vaccine doses per month from August onwards and five crore doses by December this year,” he says. “Our target is to produce 10 crore vaccine doses in a year.”

5.21 pm: Delhi reports 93 new Covid-19 cases, 111 recoveries and four deaths in the last 24 hours, reports ANI, citing the Capital’s health ministry bulletin.

3.57 pm: “I ask you all to follow Covid-19-appropriate behaviour with more awareness,” the prime minister says, according to ANI.

3.57 pm: “Our doctors, their knowledge and experience is helping us battle this Covid-19 virus,” Modi says. “Budget allocation for the health sector has been doubled.”

3.54 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses doctors on National Doctor’s Day.

1.38 pm: Health clinics in the Russian capital city, Moscow, will start offering booster Covid-19 vaccine shots, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin says, as the country tries to contain a surge in coronavirus cases, reports Reuters.

1.17 pm: Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla expects European drug regulators to approve Covishield in a month, clearing the way for it to be added to the region’s “Green Pass” list, reports Bloomberg.

11.46 am: Mumbai Police arrests an accused in relation to the alleged fake vaccination racket in the city, reports ANI. The person, held from the state’s Baramati city, is the 12th arrest in the case.

11.45 am: All India Institute of Medical Sciences Director Randeep Guleria says more research data is needed before implementing a policy to mix doses of different vaccines, reports ANI.

11.30 am: The World Health Organization warns that the Delta variant of coronavirus will become the dominant strain of the infection across the world in the coming months, reports PTI. The health body says that the variant has now been detected in 96 countries.

9.55 am: United States’ infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci flags a disparity in vaccination rates in different regions of the country amid a rise in cases due to the Delta variant, reports the Hindustan Times.

9.50 am: A survey by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, finds an abnormal rise in blood sugar levels in people who were infected with coronavirus during the second wave of the pandemic, reports NDTV.

9.33 am: India records 48,786 new coronavirus cases and 1,005 deaths in the last 24 hours, shows data from the Union health ministry. With this, the infection tally climbs to 3,04,11,634 and the toll to 3,99,459 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The number of daily cases rise by 2,835 (6.16%) on Thursday, as compared to Wednesday.

There are currently 5,23,257 active cases in the country.

9.27 am: Bharat Biotech says it expects the emergency use listing of its Covaxin shot by the WHO not to be a long drawn process.

9.15 am: Pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila applies for emergency use approval of its Covid-19 vaccine in India, reports Reuters.

Here are the top updates from Wednesday:

• India recorded 45,951 new coronavirus cases, taking the total count of infections since the outbreak of the pandemic in January last year to 3,03,62,848. The country’s toll rose by 817 to 3,98,454.
• Brazil said it will suspend its Covid-19 vaccine contract with India’s Bharat Biotech, amid allegations of corruption in the deal. Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech said it followed a “step-by-step” approach for supply contracts and regulatory approvals for its coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin, in Brazil.
• The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax may get approval for use in India between July and September, NDTV reported.
• The Supreme Court directed yoga guru Ramdev to produce before it the video and transcripts of his statements on allopathy’s effectiveness in treating coronavirus cases.