India Coronavirus Dispatch: Over 550 children orphaned amid second wave

Wockhardt offers to make 2 billion vaccine doses a year, antibiotics worsen superbug crisis, and more-news relevant to the country's fight against the pandemic

Nearly 209,000 fresh cases reported

India reported 208,921 fresh coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking the cumulative caseload to 27.1 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 4,157 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 311,388. The active caseload is at 2.5 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 24.3 million. As many as 200.6 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 2 million were given on Tuesday. Read more

Over 550 children orphaned between April 1 and May 25: Govt

Between April 1 and May 25, as many as 577 children across the country were orphaned after their parents succumbed to Covid-19, a report in the Scroll said. “GOI (Government of India) is committed to support and protect every vulnerable child due to loss of both parents to Covid-19,” tweeted Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani. Reports said the Ministry of Women and Child Development took up the matter of children who lost both their parents to the pandemic after posts for adopting them started flooding social media. Read more

Wockhardt offers to make 2 billion vaccine doses a year

Indian drugmaker Wockhardt has told the central government it can make as many as two billion doses a year of most Covid vaccines, starting with a capacity of 500 million shots by February 2022, a report in The Indian Express said citing sources. The firm has sought help to identify potential partners in the country whose vaccines it could manufacture. It is also in the middle of “accessing” some of the technology to make Covid shots. It has told the government it has the manufacturing and research capability to create a diversified vaccine portfolio that would allow it to make mRNA, protein-based and viral vector-based shots, the report said. Read more

Antibiotics for Covid worsen superbug crisis

Inordinate use of antibiotics has sparked drug-resistant infections in the country for years, but now the Covid crisis has made matters worse, a report in Bloomberg said. A look at patients hospitalized during the country's first Covid wave who also developed bacterial and fungal infections found that a small but alarming proportion harbour germs that resist multiple drugs. Doctors battling to save lives amid a shortage of effective treatments are relying on the medicines they have available — often antibiotics that aren’t used in other countries for Covid, the report said. Read more

Paediatric syndrome linked with Covid resolved after six months: study

A study has found that most symptoms of a rare condition called paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS-TS) associated with Covid are resolved after six months, a report in The Indian Express said. The findings were published in the journal Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. The symptoms of the condition include fever, rash, eye infection, and gastrointestinal symptoms. In some rare cases, the condition can lead to multi-organ failure, the report said. Read more