India Coronavirus Dispatch: How Pak may get India-made vaccine doses

Researchers oppose the use of placebo trials for vaccine development, 103-year-old becomes country's oldest woman to get the vaccine, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Pakistan to get 45 million India-made vaccine doses through GAVI

Pakistan will receive 45 million India-made Covid-19 vaccine shots this year through Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), a report in The Quint said. GAVI is a public-private global alliance that works towards improving access to vaccines in poorer countries. Out of the 45 million doses, Pakistan is set to receive 16 million free doses of Covishield manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) which will cover 20 per cent of the country's population. The first batch of vaccines is due by mid-March and the rest by the end of June. Read more here 

Vaccination programme needs more data on adverse events: Report 

As the vaccination infrastructure is being scaled up, there are increasing concerns of how well adverse events following immunisation are being tracked, reported, and examined by the government, a report in IndiaSpend said that cited views of medical experts. The central health ministry's daily updates on the vaccination programme have given no information on adverse events since February 26. Even before that, the information that was provided was little and incomplete. When numbers of adverse events were mentioned, there was no detailed description of the adverse events. Read more here

Researchers oppose the use of placebo trials for Covid vaccines

In December, the World Health Organization's ad hoc expert panel backed the continued use of blinded placebo-controlled studies for reliable evidence, but the scientific community disagrees, a report in ThePrint said. The Indian Journal of Medical Education (IJME) has published two articles so far and is set to come out with more arguments against the use of placebo-controlled trials to develop Covid-19 vaccines. The main argument is the negative effects on access to vaccines by low-income and middle-income countries. A placebo is an inactive drug used in a clinical trial and is sometimes called a “sugar pill”, the report said. Read more here 

Women more likely to be Covid 'long-haulers': Study

New research has revealed the odds of women becoming Covid-19 "long-haulers" are higher, a report ThePrint said. Long-haulers are individuals that show symptoms of Covid even after being cured of the infection. The study took into account 1,407 records of Covid-19 patients with symptoms. In a preprint research paper that was published last week, the US researchers found that the group of individuals in which the symptoms persisted for 61 days and more consisted of nearly 60% females. Read more here

103-year-old Kameshwari becomes India's oldest woman to get the vaccine

Bengaluru's J Kameshwari is the oldest woman to have received the Covid-19 vaccine so far in India at an age of 103 years, a report the Hindustan Times said. Kameshwari, who was accompanied by her 77-year-old-son who also got his shot, did not report any side effects after the vaccine was administered, according to media reports. Before Kameshwari J, Mumbai's Shashikala Joshi was the oldest woman to get vaccinated at an age of 100 years. Joshi took her first jab on March 5 along with her daughter who is 75 years old. Read more here