India will need 5 lakh ICU beds, 3.5 lakh medical staff in next few weeks: leading surgeon
At present, India has only 75,000 to 90,000 ICU beds and almost all are occupied
Health
Indians rush for vaccines as coronavirus toll tops 200,000
Indians struggled to register online for a mass vaccination drive set to begin at the weekend as the country’s toll from the coronavirus surged past 200,000 on Wednesday, worsened by shortages of hospital beds and medical oxygen.
UN leads new global immunization effort
A UN-led global immunization strategy was unveiled on Monday to reach more than 50 million children who have missed lifesaving jabs against diseases such as measles, yellow fever and diptheria, in large part because of COVID-19 disruption.
‘Plausible’ link between AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots, WHO committee says
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine could possibly cause rare blood clots in some people but further studies are required to confirm the link, experts with the World Health Organizatio (WHO) said on Wednesday.
COVID-19: AstraZeneca vaccine benefits still ‘largely positive’
The benefits of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are still “largely positive” and outweigh risk of rare but serious blood clots, said an official with the World Health Organization (WHO), on Tuesday during a press briefing from Geneva.
COVID-19 origins report inconclusive: WHO
The report from a team of international scientists assembled by the World Health Organization (WHO) to examine how COVID-19 first spread to humans was published on Tuesday, and was described by the UN health agency’s chief as a welcome start, but far from conclusive.
COVID disrupts contraception services, leads to 1.4 million unintended pregnancies, says UNFPA
One year since COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic, the UN’s reproductive health agency said that an estimated 12 million women have experienced disruptions to their family planning services.
WHO adds Janssen vaccine to list of safe and effective emergency tools against COVID-19
The decision comes on the back of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorization, which was announced on March 11
Mental health alert for 332 million children linked to COVID-19 lockdown policies: UNICEF
The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, says the mental health of millions of children worldwide has been put at risk, with at least one in seven forced to remain at home under nationwide public health orders – or recommendations – during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With India’s Covishield, global COVAX vaccine rollout begins in Africa
The first COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Africa using COVAX doses of Covishield vaccine began in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.