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“As of now, there is no reason to consider vaccination in children based on the available evidence,” said Dr VK Paul.
With three Covid-19 vaccine candidates under active consideration of India's drug regulator, the country is gearing up for its mega vaccination drive to provide the doses to the most vulnerable people in the next six to eight months.
According to the reports, three phases have been planned for the vaccinations in which healthcare workers will be immunized in the first phase, frontline workers like policemen in the second, and senior citizens and co-morbid citizens above the age of 50 will be vaccinated in the third phase.
No Need To Panic About The New Virus Strain
Further talking about the new strain of the virus, which is being held to the recent surge in the Covid-19 cases, Dr Paul said that there are no causes for concern and asked the people not to panic and remain vigilant about the virus. “There is no cause for concern, no need to panic, as for now. We need to stay vigilant,” he said.
He also said that as the transmissibility of the virus has been increased by the new strain, the severity of the disease and fatality has not been affected by the mutation. “The new strain of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom has increased transmissibility. This mutation is not affecting the severity of the disease. Case fatality is not affected by this mutation,” he added.
India’s Recovery Rate Reaches 95 Percent
Meanwhile, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, told the media that the recovery rate of the country has reached 95 per cent, the number of active cases is less than three lakh and average daily new cases for the past seven weeks have declined. “It is after almost 5.5 months, we have less than 3 lakh active Covid-19 cases in the country. Currently, the active cases are less than 3% of overall cases,” Bhushan said.
India Suspended Flights To And From The United Kingdom
After cases in the United Kingdom increased because of a new mutation of the coronavirus, India on Monday suspended air travel from England. With the new guidelines for passengers from the UK, RT-PCR tests have been made mandatory. In order to observe the presence of the new mutation in the virus, genome sequencing is being done in designated labs of the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).