India Coronavirus Dispatch: Mumbai vaccine centres are running dry

Home-grown drug to cure mild Covid in the works, study finds booster shot can protect against variants, and more-news relevant to India's fight against the pandemic

Over 38,000 fresh cases reported

India reported 38,353 fresh coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking the cumulative caseload to 32 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 497 more deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 429,179. The active caseload is at 386,351, while the total recoveries have surged to 31.2 million. As many as 51.9 million vaccine shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 4.1 million were given on Tuesday. Read more

Mumbai vaccine centres are running dry

Even as officials and experts are awaiting a potential third Covid wave, vaccine centres are increasingly running dry in Mumbai due to a mismatch in supply and demand coupled with the municipal corporation’s decision to “go aggressive on vaccination", a report in the Scroll said. This month, municipal vaccination centres have functioned for five out of 10 days. In July, centres ran for 17 days, down from 25 days in June and 24 days in May. Centres are shut on Sunday. In July, there were not enough stocks to allow all the municipality’s 295 centres to stay open every working day, the report said. Read more

India-made drug to cure mild Covid in the works

A little known biosciences firm near Kolhapur in Maharashtra is testing a new drug that could potentially become India’s first home-grown cure for mild Covid, a report in The Indian Express said. In early tests, the drug is promising to turn infected patients RT-PCR negative in 72-90 hours, company officials said. The candidate drug is currently undergoing phase 1 human trials that are likely to be completed by the end of this month, the report said. Read more

Booster shot can protect against variants: study

Findings from a new study show that an autumn “booster” dose of a Covid vaccine will be effective in protecting people from variants, a report in The Indian Express said. The researchers found that antibodies generated by a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine were less effective at neutralising variants of concern. However, the second dose dramatically improved neutralising antibody responses against variants — to a level comparable to those seen for the original strain. This suggests that an additional boost, even using vaccines containing the original strain of coronavirus, will improve protection against variants, the scientists said. The findings have been published in Science Translational Medicine. Read more

Centre gives nine reasons for Kerala’s high caseload

The central government has identified nine unique challenges Kerala is facing in controlling Covid cases, a report in The Indian Express said. Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh, director, National Centre for Disease Control, who recently visited Kerala said a key challenge is that there is little demarcation between rural and urban areas in the state, leading to high intra-house transmission. He said the high prevalence of non-communicable diseases is another factor leading to a high caseload. According to Singh, two other factors — 55% susceptible population and prevalence of 90% of highly infectious Delta variant in the state — are also big reasons. Read more