India has authorized the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, a leading local drugmaker said yesterday, in a boost for the nation’s inoculation drive as infection rates soar to record highs.
Russia’s Sputnik V is the third vaccine to be approved by India after the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and Covaxin, which was developed by Indian firm Bharat Biotech.
“We are very pleased to obtain the emergency use authorization for Sputnik V in India,” said G.V. Prasad, cochair of pharmaceutical company Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.
“With the rising cases in India, vaccination is the most effective tool in our battle against COVID-19,” Prasad said in a statement.
VIRUS SURGE
The South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people has been battling a huge surge in COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks that has prompted night curfews, and a clampdown on movement and activities.
India on Monday reported more than 161,000 new cases — the seventh-consecutive day that more than 100,000 infections have been recorded.
Sputnik V, backed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), already has production agreements in India to produce 852 million doses.
RDIF chief executive Kirill Dmitriev said in a statement that the approval was a “major milestone” after “extensive cooperation” on clinical trials of the shot in India.
India, home to the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, started its inoculation drive in the middle of January and has administered more than 10.8 million shots so far.
However, the government’s ambitious goal of vaccinating 300 million people by the end of July has been hit by reports of stock shortages in some states and vaccine hesitancy.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS