Backing the AstraZeneca vaccine, Dr Dhiren Gupta, Pediatrician from Sir Gangaram Hospital, said that the result of the trial conducted by the US with the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine areout and reveal that the vaccine was 79% effective at stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing serious illness.
The data revealed that there were no safety issues regarding the blood clots and confirmed that the shot is both highly effective and safe.
The trial was conducted by experts at Columbia University and the University of Rochester in collaboration with AstraZeneca, on more than 32,000 volunteers, mostly from America, and also from Chile and Peru.
Lead investigator of the Oxford University trial of the vaccine, Prof Andrew Pollard said: “‘These results are great news as they show the remarkable efficacy of the vaccine in a new population and are consistent with the results from Oxford-led trials.
Prof Sarah Gilbert, co-designer of the vaccine, said: “In many different countries and across age groups, the vaccine is providing a high level of protection against Covid-19 and we hope this will lead to even more widespread use of the vaccine in the global attempts to bring the pandemic to an end.”
Prof Gilbert said there were always cases of people falling ill after receiving a vaccine, particularly when very large numbers of were receiving a jab, but that did not mean that the vaccine was responsible for the problems. Meanwhile thousands of people a day were now dying across Europe from Covid-19.
She said: “It is really important that we get the chance to protect people as quickly as possible. This vaccine will save lives.”
Vaccination
India has scaled a significant peak in its battle against COVID 19 pandemic. The total vaccination coverage has surpassed 4 crores.
4,20,63,392 vaccine doses have been administered through 6,86,469 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am today.
These include 77,06,839 HCWs (1st dose), 48,04,285 HCWs (2nd dose), 79,57,606 FLWs (1st dose) and 24,17,077 FLWs (2nd Dose), 32,23,612 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities (1st Dose) and 1,59,53,973 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.
As on Day-63 of the vaccination drive (19th March, 2021), 27,23,575 vaccine doses were given.
Union Health Minister urges in Lok Sabha to take vaccine shots and don’t hesitate
In Lok Sabha the Union Health Minister Dr.Harsh Vardhan urges to take vaccines,”No one should have any doubts about the COVID19 vaccines. I urge all to take the vaccine shots.”
India sees sharpest rise in Covid-19 cases in 10 months. India has touched almost 40,000 cases of COVID-19 reported in last 24 hours .This is the highest since Nov28 last year.
According to the Union Health Ministry , Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh exhibiting a steep rise in Daily New Cases; together account 80.63% of the daily new cases.
Five Hospitals of Gurugram hospitals are about to introduce 24×7 vaccination facility from March 15 and Gurugram will become the first district to do so. People are being vaccinated on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in government hospitals in Gurugram while it goes on from Monday to Saturday in private hospitals.
As of now, 22 government and 45 private hospitals are administering covid vaccines in the District. Seven new private hospitals will be added to the list of these 45 hospitals and vaccination here will start from Saturday, a health official said.
Dr. Virender Yadav, Civil Surgeon of Gurugram said that this decision has been taken with a view to provide accessible vaccination facilities to the people to protect them from the deadliest virus. He said, “The way the number of Covid patients is increasing in the country, it seems that there may be an increase in the number of positive cases in the coming days, so everyone should be prepared. If cases increase, the number of beds reserved for Covid patients can be be increased in private hospitals as before.”
“The container zone will be barricaded as before and there will be restrictions on movement. We also urged the police officers to put police personnel on duty outside the containment zones as before. Those who do not follow the Covid protocol should be penalized,” he added.
Apart from this, a Covid Vaccination helpline has also been started.
“On this helpline number, any person can get information related to Covid Vaccination like schedule of vaccination, places of vaccination, its side-effects or other effects, etc.,” Yadav said.
The helpline number is – 108, mobile number – 7015663108, 24 hour information can be obtained. On 0124-2322412, information will be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.