On Friday, the Union health ministry approved the vaccination of pregnant women against Covid19. The Ministry said that pregnant women may now register on CoWIN or walk-in to the nearest Covid Vaccination Centre (CVC) to get themselves vaccinated.

Union Health Ministry on Friday accepted the recommendations of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and subsequently gave the approval.

Health Ministry further stated, “The operational Guideline for vaccinating pregnant women, Counselling Kit for Medical Officers and FLWs, and IEC material for the public has been shared with States/UTs for its implementation.”

Earlier, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava had said that Covid-19 vaccine should be given to pregnant women as it is useful for them.

Luv Aggarwal, a Joint Secretary in Health Ministry, said, “We have noted a decline of 13% in Covid19 cases as compared to the last week. On average, we are reporting 46,000 cases (daily) in the country.”

In a parallel development, on Friday, official data showed that India became the third country to breach the mark of 400,000 Covid-19 deaths, as the country’s vast vaccination drive slows.

According to the health ministry, total deaths are at 400,312, behind only the United States and Brazil with total cases at almost 30.5 million.

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Many experts suspect that India’s true death toll is more than a million, after a devastating spike in cases during the second wave in April and May that overwhelmed hospitals.

The surge was blamed on the emergence of the Delta variant. It was also attributed to government complacency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory over the virus in January.

Daily case numbers have since decreased significantly. Many restrictions on activity have been lifted. These have raised fears of a new spike in coming months.

The centre aims to vaccinate all of the country’s 1.1 billion adults by this year’s end. Due to vaccine-shortages, administrative confusion and hesitancy, only around five percent of 1.1 billion have had two doses so far.

On June 21 the government tried to jumpstart the drive by making vaccines free for all adults. That led to a surge in demand with more than nine million shots being given in a day.

Daily inoculation rates have since slowed again. According to government figures, the daily inoculation rate is averaging just over four million per day over the past week.

A government has filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court this week. As per media reports, the affidavit slashed the number of doses the government expects to be available between August and December to 1.35 billion, from a previous projection of 2.16 billion.

It has also been reported that the centre’s filing mentioned five kinds of vaccine, down from eight in its forecast in May. The filing has also cut the number of predicted AstraZeneca doses to 500 million from 750 million previously.

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On Tuesday, India approved the Moderna vaccine for domestic use. This approval took to four the number of vaccines available along with AstraZeneca, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Russia’s Sputnik V.

On the approval, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr VK Paul said, “There are four vaccines now Covaxin, Covishield, SputnikV and Moderna. We will soon close the deal on Pfizer as well.”

On Thursday, Indian drug-maker Zydus Cadila said that it had applied for approval for its plasmid DNA-based vaccine after trials showed an efficacy rate of 67 percent.

Zydus Cadila’s chief is Sharvil Patel. He told a news conference that the firm hoped to produce 50 million doses by the end of the year with monthly output of 10 million.