The Centre has said that it is making all effort to source Covid-19 vaccines whether it is from Moderna or Pfizer.

“Whether it is Pfizer or Moderna, we are facilitating them at the Central level by two ways — regulatory facilitation in terms of approvals and procurement-related facilitation. For both Pfizer and Moderna... their order books are full, so it entirely depends on their surplus how much they can provide to India. Based on that (availability) we will ensure supply of vaccine doses at the State level,” Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health, said during a media briefing.

Agarwal was responding to questions on what the Centre is doing as as foreign manufacturers including Moderna and Pfizer have refused to sell to the States. Governments of both Delhi and Punjab have said that the US pharmaceutical companies have refused to send supplies directly to them. Moderna had refused Punjab, stating that its policy permits it to deal only with the Government of India.

Similarly, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Pfizer and Moderna had conveyed to his government that they will not be able to directly sell vaccines but would only deal with the Centre. He appealed to the Centre to quickly approve the vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna, import them and distribute to the States.

On black fungus

Clarifying on the rising cases of Mucormycosis, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, said that it is not a communicable disease — that is, it does not spread from one person to another — like Covid. He also cautioned against labelling it as black fungus as it leads to confusion.

“Black fungus is another family; this term got associated with Mucormycosis due to the presence of black dots among the culture of white fungal colonies,” Guleria added.

Guleria also said there is no evidence yet to prove that children will be more affected in the third wave. “The hypothesis on which it is based can be that this virus enters the body through ACE receptors and children have fewer of these receptors compared with adults. In both waves, data showed that these infections are low in children, and they have very mild symptoms,” Guleria said. “The mortality is more in those above 60, with comorbidities,” he added.

Infections down for 8th day

For the eighth consecutive day, India reported less than 3 lakh Covid daily cases, with 2,22,315 infections on Monday.

But the country recorded the highest number deaths in 24 hours at 4,454 till Monday morning. India has so far administered over 19.60 crore vaccine doses, with 9,42,722 shots given in the last 24 hours till Monday morning. The total number of tests done during the previous day stood at 19,28,127.

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