China grudgingly concedes India’s vaccines are good

As demand for the Indiamade COVID19 vaccines gathers momentum in foreign countries even China appears to have grudgingly accepted its South Asian neighbourrsquos domain expertiseAn article in the China Communist Partyrsquos mouthpiece Global Times states ldquoExperts suggested that Indiarsquos vaccines are no less competitive than Chinese COVID19 vaccines in both research and production capacity considering that India has the worldrsquos largest vaccine manufacturer and lower costs in labour and facilitiesrdquoThe report quotes Jiang Chunlai from Jilin Universityrsquos School of Life Sciences who had visited Bharat Biotech as saying ldquoDespite Indiarsquos reputation for generic drugs the country is not behind China in vaccine RampDrdquoldquoIndia has the worldrsquos largest vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India that has a very mature production and supply capacity even stronger than some Western countries Indian vaccine manufacturers also have a much earlier cooperation with global institutes including WHO GAVI and the Pan American Health Organization in South America PAHO and earned their trust decades agordquo Jiang saidIndia records 228 deathsWith 18222 new Coronavirus cases and 228 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours Indiarsquos overall infection tally stood at 10431639 on Saturday while the death toll reached 150798 the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said India continues its streak of low daily new cases and the country has reported a total of 10056651 recoveries so far The recovery rate stands at 9641 per cent while the fatality rate is 145 as per cent90 found with new strainThe central government on Saturday said that a total of 90 persons have been detected with the new lsquomore transmissiblersquo UK Coronavirus mutant strain They have been kept in physical isolation in health facilities ldquoTotal number of persons infected with the UK mutant strain of COVID19 now stands at 90 in the countryrdquo the Union Health Ministry said in a statementAccording to the ministry all the 90 persons have been kept in a single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by the respective state governments Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine ldquoComprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for cotravellers family contacts and others Genome sequencing on other specimens is also onrdquo the ministry addedModi lauds Indian diasporaPM Narendra Modi on Saturday lauded the contributions made by the Indian diaspora community to aid the countryrsquos fight against the pandemic ldquoThe Indian diaspora helped in the countryrsquos fight against the pandemic by contributing to PM CARES It is being used to strengthen the health infrastructure in the countryrdquo Modi said while addressing the 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas PBD Convention10431639Total number of cases in the country as of Saturday150798Total no of deaths due to the virus in India as of Saturday10056651Patients recovered and discharged in India as of Saturday