Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus on Friday said though COVID-19 is no longer a health emergency for the world, it is still a 'global health threat' and a new variant of coronavirus is already under the scanner.
The ICMR-National Institute of Virology has been regularly undertaking studies to understand the protective efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against emerging variants.
The vaccination drive was only one important part of India's globally recognised pandemic management and response strategy, observes Dr Vinod K Paul.
'There is no rationale behind the modelling methodology used by WHO to arrive at the estimate'
India has been consistently objecting to the methodology adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models, the Union Health Ministry said in a statement.
The draft calls for "impartial, independent and comprehensive" probe into the coronavirus crisis. Besides, an inquiry into the actions of the World Health Organization and "their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic."
In democratic India, a citizen can be a patriot and at the same time be critical of the government, unlike China which promulgated a national security law in Hong Kong prescribing patriotism to contest elections, observes Rup Narayan Das.
An independent Taiwan under President Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party is anathema to China, observes Rup Narayan Das.
Battling global adversity over the coronavirus and bracing for a World Health Organisation inquiry over its origin, China on Friday claimed that just because COVID-19 cases were first reported in Wuhan does not mean the contagion originated from the central Chinese city.
Vardhan's elevation to the chairmanship of the 34-member World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board comes amid growing calls, including by United States President Donald Trump, to investigate how coronavirus originated in China's Wuhan city and subsequent action by Beijing.
British intelligence agencies now believe it is 'feasible' that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a coronavirus leak from a Chinese bio laboratory, a media report said here on Sunday, prompting Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi to demand that the World Health Organisation (WHO) must fully investigate the origins of the deadly virus.
Confirming the visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing on Monday that China supported scientists around the world to conduct a global study on the origins and transmission routes of the virus.
"We raced against time and were the first country to report cases to the world," Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in interviews to the official media over the weekend.
The results of the study, being published on the website of top academic journal Nature on May 20, implied the Huanan Seafood Market in Hubei's capital Wuhan may not be the birthplace of COVID-19, although the virus outbreak emerged in Wuhan had a strong link to contacts with the market.
India is among 120 countries which backed the draft resolution put forward by the European Union and several other countries.
The wet market was where a variety of live animals were traded until it was shut down following fears that the coronavirus had jumped to humans either from bats or pangolins.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
China, besides denying the United States allegations that COVID-19 has emerged from a bio-lab in Wuhan, also rejected that it emanated from a wet market in the central Chinese city from bats or pangolins before infecting humans.
China said the study was "ridiculous" and based on "superficial" information.
The World Health Organisation team's visit has become a bone of contention as Beijing, which questions the widely-held view about the virus' origins in Wuhan, had delayed granting permission to it.
In April, the US stopped funding to WHO as the Trump administration reviewed the ties.
A whitepaper released by the Chinese government gave a lengthy explanation to refute the allegations of cover up and delay by Beijing on reporting the COVID-19 outbreak last year in Wuhan. United States President Donald Trump and leaders of several countries have accused China of not being transparent in reporting the deadly disease, leading to huge human casualties and economic crisis across the world.
Shi explained that she and a group of researchers obtained samples of coronavirus on December 30 last year and performed high-throughput sequencing of the samples and the isolation of pathogens.
Standardisation of herds help to ensure desired percentage of active ingredients in drugs for its efficacy.
Trump also announced that the US will end special treatment of Hong Kong in response to Chinese imposition of new controls.
Modi government's health ministry is good at making new claims but there is no visible sign of any new programme being initiated, finds out Manoj K.
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