NEW DELHI, June 30: “India believes there is an urgent need for carrying out ‘major reforms’ in the World Health Organization to ensure a timely, focused and effective response to potential future pandemics, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Wednesday.
Vardhan, who is also the chairman of the WHO Executive Board, said the global crisis arising out of the Corona pandemic was further compounded by ever-evolving new variants of the virus, and highlighted the need for greater collaboration between countries on various aspects of health to defeat it.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Wednesday extended the restrictions on scheduled international passenger flights to and from India extended till July 31, 2021. “However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) added. The restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the DGCA, an order said.
Scheduled international passenger services have been suspended in India since March 23, 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
India recorded 45,951 new covid-19 cases and 817 deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am on Wednesday, according to data from the Union Health Ministry. The number of fatalities in a day at 817 was the lowest since April 9. There are a total of 3,03,62,848 cases in the country while at least 2,94,27,330 people have recovered from the disease. Active cases have dropped to 5,37,064 and the recovery rate has touched 96.92 per cent, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government informed the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that it proposed to commence a drive for home vaccination of the bed-ridden people and other immobile persons. The drive would commence on an experimental basis from Pune to be expanded subsequently to other districts. It said it did not think it necessary to seek the centre’s permission for launching the drive.
The government added that it wanted to inform the court and the petitioner on the conditions for such a drive, and it was open to suggestions and objections.
The state further submitted that the experiment would start immediately by inviting emails from interested persons on a dedicated email id, announced publicly through print and electronic media.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian government, which agreed to purchase 20 million doses of Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine “Covaxin,” on Wednesday announced suspension of the contract following allegations of irregularities in the deal. “By recommendation of @CGUonline, we decided to temporarily suspend the Covaxin contract,” it said.
According to CGU’s preliminary analysis, there are no irregularities in the contract, but, due to compliance, the @minsaude opted to suspend the contract for further analysis,” Brazil Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted.
(Manas Dasgupta)
