India Coronavirus Dispatch: Cases stay under 100,000 for four days in a row

As many as 117,000 health workers to be trained for possible third wave, Centre dismisses reports that Co-Win was hacked, and more-news relevant to India's fight against the pandemic

Over 91,500 fresh cases reported

India reported 91,702 fresh coronavirus infections on Friday, taking the cumulative caseload to about 29.3 million, according to central health ministry data. This is the fourth day in a row where cases have remained under 100,000. The country saw 3,403 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 363,079. The active caseload is at 1.1 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 27.8 million. As many as 246 million vaccine shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, about 3.3 million were given on Thursday. Read more

Corporates’ workplace jabs make up a chunk of vaccination in large cities

A sizable chunk of the vaccinations administered in some of India's largest cities are of employees of big corporations and their families, a report in The Indian Express said that cited official data. Cities with large service economies such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Noida, and Chennai, had conducted about 2.04 million vaccinations at the workplace — which was more than 12 per cent of the total vaccinations carried out in India’s top seven metros. Read more

Govt to train 117,000 health workers for possible third wave

The second Covid wave highlighted the shortage of trained non-medical manpower in the healthcare sector. To make sure the country is not caught off-guard again in case of a third wave, the Modi government has started to identify and train over 1,17,000 people for various healthcare roles, a report in ThePrint said. This includes over 100,000 healthcare workers in six specific job roles—general duty assistants, general duty advanced, phlebotomist, emergency medical technician, home healthcare aid and maintenance of medical equipment like ventilators and oxygen concentrators. Around 15,000 people will be trained to help in the maintenance of oxygen plants, ventilators and oxygen concentrators. Another 2,500 drivers will be trained to run oxygen tankers, the report said. Read more

Govt dismisses reports that Co-Win was hacked

The central government has dismissed rumours going around on social media that Co-Win, its portal to manage the Covid-19 vaccination rollout, had been hacked, a report in the Scroll said. The health ministry said the portal stores all data in a safe and secure manner. “There have been some unfounded media reports of the CoWIN platform being hacked,” the ministry said. “Prima facie, these reports appear to be fake.” Dr RS Sharma, chairperson of the Empowered Group on Vaccine Administration, said CoWIN data is not shared with any entity outside of the system. Read more

Why did US FDA reject Covaxin's emergency use application?

Bharath Biotech's Covaxin was not given approval for emergency use in the US by the country's top health regulator—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An explainer in the Hindustan Times said the FDA requested additional information and data on Covaxin, according to a statement by the firm's US partner Ocugen. Covaxin has been facing criticism in India for not sharing its Phase-3 trial data, despite being approved by India's top drug regulator, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) six months ago, the report said. Read more