How India’s vaccine drive went horribly wrong

By Nikhil Inamdar and Aparna Alluri BBC News Coronavirus pandemic It took 31-year-old Sneha Marathe half a day to book an appointment online for a Covid vaccine. “It was a game of ‘fastest finger first’,” she says. “The slots filled up in three seconds.” But the hospital cancelled her slot at the last minute: they […]

India Covid: Do reinfections pose a challenge to vaccines?

Soutik Biswas India correspondent Coronavirus pandemic IMAGE COPYRIGHT PALLAVA BAGLAimage caption Pallava Bagla (right) was infected and hospitalised weeks after he was fully vaccinated Three weeks after he had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, a science journalist in Delhi developed high fever, a sore throat and a general feeling of discomfort. On 22 April, […]

Coronavirus in India: ‘My city is under siege from Covid-19’

Coronavirus in India: ‘My city is under siege from Covid-19’Close The BBC’s Vikas Pandey has called Delhi home for more than a decade – but life in India’s capital has changed beyond recognition under a deadly second wave of Covid-19 infections. For more than a month now, people have been desperately trying to find help […]

Eli Lilly signs deals to boost supply of COVID-19 treatment

Reuters Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) said on Monday it had signed licensing agreements with three Indian generic drugmakers to expand the availability of its arthritis drug baricitinib in the country for treating COVID-19 patients. The agreements will bolster India’s arsenal of drugs to battle its catastrophic second wave of the pandemic, which has led to […]

Explainer: What we know about the Indian variant as coronavirus

Reuters India has recorded the world’s sharpest spike in coronavirus infections this month, with political and financial capitals New Delhi and Mumbai running out of hospital beds, oxygen and medicines. Scientists are studying what led to the unexpected surge, and particularly whether a variant of the novel coronavirus first detected in India is to blame. […]

India’s seven-day COVID average at new high, WHO issues warning

Reuters Crowds clamour for COVID drugs at Indian hospital India’s coronavirus crisis showed scant sign of easing on Tuesday, with a seven-day average of new cases at a record high and international health authorities warning the country’s variant of the virus poses a global concern. India’s daily coronavirus cases rose by 329,942, while deaths from […]

India’s brutal COVID wave brings tragic scenes to small town

Danish Siddiqui In the emergency room of a public hospital in northern India on Tuesday, a man was trying to revive his mother who had just died from COVID-19-like symptoms. On another bed, a young man who had tested positive was sitting up and making an effort to breathe while two members of his exhausted […]

India Covid: Kumbh Mela pilgrims turn into super-spreaders

By Geeta Pandey BBC News, Delhi Kumbh Mela When millions of devout Hindus gathered last month in the Himalayan town of Haridwar to participate in the Kumbh Mela festival even as India battled a devastating second wave of coronavirus, many feared that it would turn out to be a “super-spreader event”. Those fears, it now […]

India Covid: Dozens of bodies wash up on banks of

Coronavirus pandemic The bodies of at least 40 people have washed up on the banks of the Ganges river in northern India, officials say. The discovery, near the border between the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, was confirmed to the BBC on Monday. It is not clear how the bodies came to be there, […]

South African variant can ‘break through’ Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study

By Maayan Lubell JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa can “break through” Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who […]