NEW DELHI: SpiceHealth and government research institute CSIR-IGIB on Thursday started a genome sequencing laboratory at the Delhi airport to ensure early action against new variants of coronavirus that have emerged in countries like the UK. Samples of all international passengers, who undergo RT-PCR test on arrival at the Delhi airport and are found positive, will be sent to this genome sequencing lab.

In sequencing, the chemical structure of the virus sample is analysed to understand if and how it is different from other strands of the virus already detected.

“We have started a pilot project with SpiceHealth here at the airport to find out if we can generate the ‘sequence’ in less than 48 hours and inform the government in case there is a virus variant,” said Anurag Agrawal, Director, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB).

Samples shipped to

NEW DELHI: Paramilitary forces have started gearing up for the highly anticipated Covid-19 vaccine drive scheduled to start from January 16.

According to various paramilitary top officials, paramedic staff and doctors will be vaccinated in the first phase followed by all paramilitary staff, which is close to about 10 lakh people.

Around 25,000 total of all paramilitary paramedics and doctors will be vaccinated in the first phase.

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) sources claimed that 3,300 para-medics and doctors will get vaccinated in the first phase, while registration is currently on for the next phase. So far, a total of 1,92,000 CRPF jawans have been registered. CPRF is in the process of getting 1,55,000 more jawans registered for the second phase.

Similarly in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which is also taking care of various COVID centres, including the world’s largest Covid centre in Delhi’s

The number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in India has climbed to 96, the health ministry said on Monday.

Till Saturday, the number of such people was 90.

“The total number of persons found infected with the mutant UK strain of Covid-19 is 96,” the ministry said.

All these people were kept in single-room isolation at designated healthcare facilities by the respective state governments, it had earlier said.

Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine and a comprehensive contact-tracing exercise has been initiated for the co-travellers, family members and others, the ministry said, adding that the genome sequencing of other specimens is going on.

The situation is being monitored and regular advice is being given to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG laboratories.

The presence of the new UK variant of the coronavirus

JAIPUR: Preparations for rolling out Covid-19 vaccination programme in Rajasthan have been made and around 4.5 lakh health workers will be vaccinated in the first phase, Health minister Raghu Sharma said on Sunday.

Sharma said data of 4,36,146 government and private sector health workers had been uploaded on COVIN (Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network) software by 1 pm on Saturday.

He said the first phase of vaccination will be conducted at 282 sessions sites from January 16 onwards. Of them, two sites including Jaipur and Ajmer will be interactive.

“Rajasthan is all prepared for the vaccination programme… 3,689 medical institutions in the government sector and 2,969 medical institutions in the private sector have been identified for the vaccination programme in the first phase and 5,626 vaccination parties have been trained,” he said at a press conference here.

He said the government has set up three state-level, seven divisional-level, 34 (medical) district-level

HYDERABAD: After receiving emergency use authorisation (EUA) approval for indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, Bharat Biotech has now applied to the country’s drug regulator for permission to conduct phase I and II trials of its intranasal vaccine candidate. It has been codenamed BBV154.

The candidate, being developed in collaboration with the University of Washington School of Medicine at St Louis (WashU), is a single-dose vaccine that is slated to be a gamechanger for Covid-19 vaccination rollouts. The company has said its administration would require only two drops each in each nostril.

Sources said the company expects the trials to start by early February and has proposed phase I trials on around 375 volunteers. This is similar to Covaxin phase I trials, but at a smaller number of sites – five to six instead of the 11 involved in Covaxin.

Bharat Biotech told TOI that for BBV154 “pre-clinical testing