China health commission stops publishing daily Covid figures

The NHC's halt to reporting daily infection and death totals comes as concerns grow around the lack of vital information since Beijing made sweeping changes to a zero-Covid policy that had put hundreds of millions of its citizens under relentless lockdowns and battered the world's second-largest economy.

Reuters

Updated On Dec 25, 2022 at 01:16 PM IST

New Delhi: Private hospitals have initiated discussions with Bharat Biotech to procure small quantities of its intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, which the government has approved as a booster dose, expecting a pick-up in vaccination amid a new pandemic wave in China and some other countries.

"We have written to Bharat Biotech, asking how we can procure the supply, about the pricing, etc," a senior executive at a private hospital said. "We are not sure about the demand yet, but in all probability, we will buy it in small quantities, just to be sure," the person told ET.

The government had on Friday approved the vaccine, iNCOVACC, which is administered as a nasal drop, as a heterologous booster dose for adults. The vaccine will be available at private centres and on the government's CoWin platform.

Government insiders said the needle-free vaccine will be offered free of cost to those above 60 under its vaccination programme. Those aged 18-59 will have to pay for it in private hospitals.>