The health ministry on Tuesday stated that currently, there were 200 cases of the new Omicron variant in India. 54 cases each were reported in Maharashtra and Delhi which is the highest number of omicron cases in any state in India, followed by 20 in Telangana and 19 in Karnataka. The country recorded 5,326 new Coronavirus cases and 453 deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am Tuesday. Active cases were 79,097 while over 8,000 people recovered on Monday.

The Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Parliament on Monday that the results of the study related to the effectiveness of current COVID vaccines available in India against the Omicron variant will be known within a week. To avoid any crisis as seen in the first and second wave, buffer stocks of medicine and oxygen have been already arranged.

An official from Bharat Biotech said on Monday that the company has applied for the approval to conduct a phase-3 study for its intra-nasal Covid-19 vaccine as a booster dose on participants vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin titled ‘‘A Phase 3 Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of BBV154 and BBV152 as third dose (booster) to participants previously vaccinated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccines” from Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).

Source: The Indian Express