Government News

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has delayed the implementation of track and trace system for export of pharmaceuticals to maintain the parent-child relationship in packaging levels and its uploading on Central portal till April 1, 2022 for both SSI (small scale industry) and non-SSI manufactured drugs.

Prior, the last date was extended till April 1, 2021 due to the ongoing situation of COVID-19. And again it is further extended for one year of time period.

ICMR reported that Covishield and Covaxin vaccines are effective against the UK and the Brazilian variants of coronavirus, and several laboratories are involved in work against South African strain. Addressing a weekly press conference of the Union health ministry, ICMR Director-General Balram Bhargava also said of 11,064 genome samples sequenced in the country, the UK variant of the virus was detected in 807, the South African variant in 47 and the Brazilian variant was found in one.

The National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), a Lucknow-based constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is known for its research and development related to various botanical disciplines. A broad spectrum of research activities is being conducted at CSIR-NBRI, which includes plant diversity, systematics and herbarium, pharmacognosy, phytochemistry, plant ecology, environmental technologies, molecular biology, biotechnology, plant genetic resources, plant conservation, and agro-technologies.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) recommends DCGI to remove the Clinical Trial tag from Covaxin by Bharat Biotech which is Whole Virion, Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine. And prior granted by DCGI under restricted use in emergency situation conditions.

Recommendations of the SEC meeting to examine COVID-19 related proposal under accelerated approval process made in its 146th meeting held on 10.03.2021 at CDSCO, HQ New Delhi.

Innovators at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal have developed a unique ‘Crowd and Mask’ Monitoring System to prevent COVID-19 from spread. This one-of-its-kind low cost Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled device is portable and easy to deploy across various locations, says a statement released by the institution.

Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Monday announced inclusion of “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” into the National Programme for Prevention & Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS), a move that will help manage the country’s burden of non-communicable diseases.

Special provisions have been made in the budget of 2021 to encourage science, technology, innovation and research in the country. This year, the budget of the Department of Science-Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences has been increased by 30 percent. A total of Rs 16,695 crore has been provided to these two departments in the budget. Giving this information, Science and Technology, Earth Science and Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan has said that this increase in the budget will encourage research and development.

In this difficult time when the whole world has suffered from an unknown, invisible and unknowable virus COVID-19, India is ready to provide its cut to the world community. India, which has become the Corona vaccine, is running the world's largest vaccination campaign today. Not only this, along with the vaccination of Corona to Indians, India is also providing vaccines to many other countries.

According to the third national serological-survey report of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), over 21 percent of the population, aged 18 years and above, showed evidence of past exposure to COVID-19. The data on seroprevalenceamong those aged 10-17 was found to be 25.3 percent.