NEW DELHI: US pharma giant Johnson and Johnson on Friday said it has applied for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine Janssen to the Government of India. A statement issued by the company on Thursday read, “On 5th August 2021 Johnson and Johnson Pvt. Ltd applied for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to the Government of India.” The pharma company stated that it is an important milestone that paves the way to bringing the single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to the people of India, and the rest of the world.

NEW DELHI: Twitter on Saturday removed the blue tick from legendary cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s account. Dhoni last tweeted on 8 January 2021. The blue tick on a Twitter handle is to let people know that the social media account is authentic. It said to receive the blue badge, the person’s account must be authentic, notable, and active. Having retired from international cricket on August 15, 2020, Dhoni now only plays in the Indian Premier League and will be back in action when the UAE leg of IPL resumes in September.

LONDON: Initial findings on the Delta variant of Sars-CoV-2 indicate that the people vaccinated against Covid-19 may transmit the highly contagious strain as easily as the unvaccinated, Public Health England said on Friday. The findings come after concerns raised by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over people’s infectiousness amid Delta variant spread. The variant of concern, first detected in India, is rapidly becoming the dominant variant across the globe, threatening the gains made by vaccination drives. In a report published by the PHE, scientists have said that vaccination will not completely stop coronavirus transmission even as they provide high levels of protection.

US Charge d’Affaires to Afghanistan Ross Wilson has expressed his condolences over the death of the Afghanistan government’s media head on Friday. Dawa Khan Menapal, who headed the Media and Information Centre of the Afghanistan government, was assassinated on Friday, local media reports said. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for his death.

Dawa Khan had served as head of the Afghan government’s media wing in Kandahar in 2015 and worked as deputy presidential spokesman between 2016 and 2020.

Taking to Twitter, Wilson wrote, “We are saddened & disgusted by the Taliban’s targeted killing of Dawa Khan Meenapal, a friend and colleague, whose career was focused on providing truthful information to all Afghans about Afghanistan. These murders are an affront to Afghans’ human rights & freedom of speech.”

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that the groups’ fighters had killed Menapal. In a statement Mujahid put out later, he said Menapal “was killed in a special attack of Mujahideen” and was “punished for his deeds”.

The interior ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai on Friday said: “Unfortunately, the savage terrorists have committed a cowardly act once again and martyred a patriotic Afghan.”

Fighting in Afghanistan’s long-running conflict has intensified since May, when foreign forces began the final stage of a withdrawal due to be completed later this month.

The Taliban already control large portions of the countryside, and are now challenging Afghan government forces in several large cities.

WITH AGENCY INPUTS

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, on Friday cautioned people against lowering their guard against the coronavirus and urged them to strictly follow Covid-appropriate protocols for another six months.

Chief scientist of the World Health Organization Dr Soumya Swaminathan on Friday warned that if the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues mutating, then a new variant that could be worse than Delta can emerge.

“I know everybody is tired, everyone wants to meet their family, organise parties. But this is not the time to let down your guard. Let’s be careful for another six months. By then, if the vaccination coverage is very high, then things should definitely start improving,” she said.

The WHO chief scientist also said that there is no scientific evidence for anxiety that the third wave will target children. While speaking to ANI, Dr Swaminathan said, “The ICMR serosurvey showed that 65 per cent of children and adults have been infected and have developed antibodies. This means that children are very mildly affected by Covid, either they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. We should not be too worried about a third wave affecting children. There is no scientific evidence.”

Dr Swaminathan said that if the virus mutates further and get a new variant, “it could be worse than Delta variant.” The highly transmissible and more infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 has been attributed to be reason behind the second wave of COVID in the country. India reported 44,643 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Ministry of health and family welfare said on Friday. India’s active caseload currently stands at 4,14,159 which constitute 1.30 per cent of the total coronavirus cases. (ANI)

Dr Swaminathan dismissed fears that the third wave will be impacting the children most and said it is not yet time to let down the guard. Speaking to news agency ANI in Chennai, she said that 65 per cent of children and adults have developed antibodies, according to the ICMR serosurvey. This data proves that children have also been mildly affected by Covid, though their infections might have been mild. So the assumption that children will get affected the most in the third wave as they have not been affected in the first two waves has no scientific backing as it is wrong to assume that children were not affected in the first two waves. “We should not be too worried about a third wave affecting children. There is no scientific evidence,” Dr Swaminathan said.

In the meantime, India reported 44,643 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday. With these new cases, the active tally has climbed to 4,14,159 and constitutes 1.30 per cent of total cases. With 41,096 recoveries in the last 24 hours, the overall recoveries in the country have reached 3,10,15,844. The recovery rate now stands at 97.36 per cent.

A total of 4,26,754 deaths have been reported so far out of which 464 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. Also, the weekly positivity rate, which is currently at 2.41 per cent, remained below 5 per cent. The daily positivity rate, currently at 2.72 per cent, has been less than 3 per cent for the last 11 days. The testing capacity has substantially ramped up as the country has conducted 47.65 crore tests so far.

Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla said that he is “hopeful” that American pharmaceutical firm Novavax’s vaccine candidate against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Covavax, will be launched in India for both adults and children in October and early 2022, respectively.

“I’m hopeful that for adults, Covavax, will be launched in October, depending upon approvals from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). For kids, the Covavax vaccine will be launched in the first quarter of the next year, most likely in January-February,” Poonawalla told news agency PTI, after meeting Union home minister Amit Shah in Parliament for 30 minutes.

He also thanked the government for all the support provided to Serum Institute and said the company is always trying to expand its Covishield production capacity to meet the demand. Poonawalla met Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament and the meeting between the two lasted for 30 minutes.

“The government is helping us and we are facing no financial crunch. We are thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for all the cooperation and support,” Poonawala told PTI after his meeting.

When asked about vaccines for kids, he said, “The Covovax vaccine for kids will be launched in the first quarter of the next year most likely in January-February.” Poonawala said he is hopeful that for adults Covovax will be launched in October, depending on DCGI approvals.