India Coronavirus Dispatch: Centre has met only 7% of its 500 mn jab target

How an IIT-backed robotics startup built ventilators in lockdown, Delhi experienced a sharp rise in joblessness amid lockdown, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Older people at higher risk of reinfection: Lancet study

A new study published in The Lancet, the peer-reviewed medical journal, has shown that older people are more at risk of contracting Covid-19 again after recovering from a previous bout, a report in Bloomberg said. The findings showed that while most people are unlikely to catch the coronavirus again for at least six months, the elderly are more prone to reinfection. The data suggests that those who have had the infection should still be vaccination, the authors of the study said. Natural protection is not reliable, particularly for older people who are most at risk for severe disease. Read more here 

 

India has met just 7% of its initial target of 500 million jabs

India has administered 34.9 million million vaccine jabs two months into its vaccination programme, which is 7% of its initial target of 500 million people, a report in IndiaSpend said. The country has about four and a half months left to achieve the remaining 93% of its target. India's capacity to vaccinate has fluctuated. It started at 220,000 shots a day on the first day of vaccination (January 16), fell to 130,000 shots a month later in February, and surged to almost 2 million on March 16. Read more here 

 

How IIT-backed robotics startup built ventilators in lockdown

Noccarc Robotics, backed by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, overcame many hurdles including a desperate scramble for components to build a low-cost ventilator for Covid-19 patients at the peak of the pandemic last year, a report in ThePrint said. This journey has now been narrated in the new book The Ventilator Project — How the IIT Kanpur Consortium Built a World-class Product during India’s Covid-19 Lockdown. The book is written by Amitabha Bandyopadhyay, professor in-charge of the IIT Kanpur incubator, Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC), and IIT-Kanpur alumnus Srikant Sastri. Both Bandyopadhyay and Sastri were part of the task force that assisted the project, the report said. Read more here

Group of experts write to officials in charge of vaccine response for info on adverse events

A group of 29 independent experts have written a letter addressed to senior members of the Modi government that are heading the country's pandemic response asking for an “urgent investigation of deaths and serious adverse events following administration of COVID-19 vaccine", a report in The Wire said. The group is mostly made up of health experts. It also includes a journalist, two advocates and notable names like virologist T Jacob John, public health doctor Sylvia Karpagam, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics editor Amar Jesani and health activist Malini Aisola. Read more here
 

Delhi experienced a sharp rise in joblessness amid Covid-induced lockdown

Unemployment in Delhi jumped 17.4 percentage points between January-February and October-November 2020 as the region's economy was hurt by the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the virus, according to a Delhi government survey, a report in The Wire said. The overall joblessness rose from 11.1% to 28.5%. Women’s unemployment rose more than men from 25.6% to 54.7%. Read more here