[ad_1]
Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and discussed the coronavirus situation in the state, sources in the government said. Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Tuesday said 15 districts, including Mumbai and Thane, are showing a decline in daily COVID-19 cases, but other districts are still exhibiting an upward trend in the state. He said the government is targeting to reduce the number of coronavirus infections in the districts with high caseload. Tope said the state government was in talks with the manufacturer of Russian vaccine Sputnik V to arrive at a purchase price for the jab. He said the global expression of interest, floated by the state government for vaccine purchase, has received a good response from companies.
The Centre has approved holding of Covid-19 vaccination sessions at public and private workplaces that have at least 100 eligible and willing beneficiaries by tagging these workplaces with an existing Covid Vaccination Centre. The announcement came on the sidelines of a vaccination drive organised by the Press Information Bureau where a team of medics administered vaccines to about 110 people, including PIB staff and journalists above the age of 45 years. As COVID-19 infections surge across the country with nearly half of the fresh cases now being in rural areas, accelerated vaccination is the only solution to contain the raging pandemic, according to a report by SBI Research. The second wave of the pandemic has led the country begging for global aid in terms of money, medical oxygen and life-saving drugs as it has been contributing almost 44 per cent of the global caseload for the past many days. The report noted that the share of the top 15 districts in total new cases has significantly plunged to 26.3 per cent in May from 55 per cent in March, indicating that the spread of infections is now dispersed across the country.
Meanwhile, after Hyderabad, two lionesses have tested positive for Covid-19 at the Etawah safari park and have been kept in isolation. In what could be confirmed as the first incident of animals contracting Coronavirus in India, eight Asiatic Lions at the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad tested positive for the novel Coronavirus. RT-PCR tests of the infected animals were conducted by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, examined the nasal and throat samples (oropharyngeal swab) of the big cats. Zoo officials raised an alarm last week when they saw the pack of Lions wheezing with dry cough, nasal discharge and loss of appetite.
[ad_2]
Source link
