As per the complaint, Satish Deshpande, one of the directors at the SII had received a message on WhatsApp from a person posing as SII CEO Adar Poonawalla and was asked to send money into seven different accounts in September 2022. Believing the message was from Poonawala, Deshpande transferred Rs 1.01 crore into those accounts, only to realise later that the company had been duped.

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], October 20 (ANI): Chief Executive Officer of Serum Institute of India (SII), Adar Poonawalla, on Thursday said that the medical firm stopped the production of the Covishield vaccine since December 2021.

New Delhi [India], May 10 (ANI): The speculations of Tesla chief Elon Musk visiting India in near future gained traction after his Twitter remark post got viral.

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 3 (ANI): Businesswoman and socialite Natasha Poonawalla's Met Gala 2022 look has garnered praise from several people including her friend and actor Kareena Kapoor Khan.

New Delhi Apr 26 PTI With only 464 lakh people taking their third Covid jab since April 10 Indians could be grappling with vaccine fatigue a reluctance to take a booster shot that experts attribute to a combination of fear confusion and misinformationAs Indias Covid graph inches upwards not enough people are getting their booster shots Among the reasons for the apparent lethargy are the fear of adverse effects the view that Covid is now a mild infection and doubts over whether a precaution dose is indeed useful said scientists public health experts and industry insidersAccording to virologist Dr T Jacob John vaccine fatigue has set in also because the cacophony of new experts has been confusingI get a number of questions for clarification on booster doses -- hence I know that the educational activity of the government that wants to prevent COVID-19 deaths hospitalisations and severe symptoms by completing the vaccination schedule in highly vulnerable people was more confusing than clarifying John told PTIFor a long time people were told that full vaccination meant two doses so the term precaution dose added to the confusion added the former director of the Indian Council for Medical Researchs Centre of Advanced Research in Virology Vaccine fatigue experts explained is when people do not take proactive action to get vaccinatedLast week Serum Institute of India SII CEO Adar Poonawallah whose company manufactures the Covishield vaccine said they have a lot of unsold inventory We stopped production on December 31 2021 Currently we are sitting on over 200 million doses I have offered this to anyone willing to pick them up for free But there hasnt been a good response to that also Seems there is vaccine fatigue among the people now as even after the price was slashed to Rs 225 there has been no major uptake Poonawalla said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave The firm has slashed the price from Rs 600 to Rs 225 a dose In the view of Praveen Sikri Ikris Pharma Network CEO people are questioning the need for a precaution dose thinking the last wave was mildThe large number of misinformation campaigns launched by anti-vaxxers such as campaigns about children developing liver failure and developing clots and people dying of vaccines had played a role in the reluctance and because the Omicron wave has been not a very dangerous one so it is adding to the vaccine fatigue said the pharma industry insider who has closely been following Indias Covid trajectoryHe added there is need to counter this by developing more conversations around vaccines letting people becoming involved in decision making It is important to let people know that countries that have not had adequate vaccination programmes or have had vaccines which are not effective are suffering very severely now due to Covid Sikri saidFactual information with believable evidence will allay the anxieties of people John added When the risk from disease has markedly reduced as the epidemic is over people worry about the risk of serious AEFI adverse event from immunisation Once vaccine hesitancy has been created it is going to be tough to overcome it Prevention is always better than cure he said Dr Ankita Baidya consultant infectious disease at the Manipal Hospital in Delhi said people are coming forward with complaints following vaccination particularly the booster dose recommended recentlyAs an infectious disease physician I would like to stress that malaise is a common side effect of vaccination But I have also seen that summers are ongoing and there are some components of psychological factors that after booster doors people are experiencing such kind of fatigueEven if it is there it should not be long-lasting If someone feels fatigued or malaise and has body ache in the initial days after vaccination this could be just a post-vaccination mild side-effect of the vaccine and it will go away she saidCounselling over the usefulness of a booster dose is important Baidya stressed Dr Vikas Deswal senior consultant internal medicine at Gurgaons Medanta Hospital concurred saying there is lack of understanding of the benefits of the booster dosesMany believe that double vaccination is enough A sense of complacency has settled in But booster doses are very important because they keep us immunised This ensures that even if the virus attacks us there are enough antibodies to ensure that the infection is mild The only way to counter vaccine fatigue is to constantly explain the benefits of the booster dose make it more easily accessible and available he said While experts debate the reasons for vaccine fatigue Neha Sharma a Noida-based IT professional said her menstrual cramps had worsened after she took her first and second jabsThough the doctor told me that it is unrelated to the vaccine I am still scared to take the third dose Also I feel that now the Omicron driven infection is getting milder so Covid is akin to seasonal flu why complicate things by taking a third dose she saidAmna Hasan a resident of Lucknow based homemaker added that she has just started feeling better after contracting Covid twiceWhy take a chance by inducing the same dead virus in my body again Hasan who was infected in both the second and third wave of COVID-19 saidShaunak Sharma a Noida based engineer has no plans to take the precaution dose eitherWe have developed immunity from COVID-19 in the past two years I recently got my antibodies tested and had enough so though my precaution dose is not due for the next few months I dont plan to take precaution dose he saidOn April 10 India began administering precaution doses of COVID-19 vaccines to all aged above 18 years at private vaccination centresAn estimated 464910 precaution doses have been administered till Tuesday morning according to Union Health ministry data Of these about half 246962 were administered in the 18-59 age group between April 20-26 On Tuesday India recorded 2483 new coronavirus infections The daily positivity rate was recorded as 055 per cent and the weekly positivity rate as 058 per cent according to the ministry Certain areas are reporting a higher positivity rate Delhi for instance reported 1011 fresh cases on Monday and a positivity rate of 642 per cent PTI UZM MIN MIN

Mumbai Jan 25 PTI Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday congratulated the Padma awardees from the state saying it was a matter of pride an official release said hereIndian classical vocalist Prabha Atre was conferred the Padma Vibhushan while Tata group head Natarajan Chandrasekaran and Cyrus Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India are Padma Bhushan awardeesDr Himmatrao Bawaskar veteran Laoni singer Sulochana Chavan Vijay Kumar Dongre Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam agriculture researcher Anilkumar Rajvanshi and neurologist Bhimsen Singha are the Padma Shri awardees from the state PTI MR KRK KRK

New Delhi [India], January 25 (ANI): Chief Executive Officer of the Serum Institute of India (SII) Adar Poonawalla on Tuesday congratulated the deserving individuals who will receive the Padma awards this year.

New Delhi Jan 25 PTI Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Hindutva poster boy late Kalyan Singh and Indias first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat who died in a helicopter crash recently were awarded Padma Vibhushan on Tuesday while veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and former West Bengal CM and CPIM leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were given Padma Bhushan Cyrus Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India which manufactured COVID-19 vaccine Covishield and Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella of Bharat Biotech which produced Indias indigenous coronavirus vaccine Covaxin were also given Padma Bhushan Kalyan Singh and General Rawat were given Padma Vibhushan the countrys second-highest civilian award posthumously Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were conferred Padma Bhushan the third-highest civilian award Late Punjabi folk singer Gurmeet Bawa actor Victor Banerjee and former Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi have been awarded Padma Bhushan Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra and singer Sonu Nigam were awarded Padma Shri According to the Ministry of Home Affairs MHA the President approved conferment of 128 Padma Awards including two duo cases this year In a duo case the award is counted as one The list comprises 4 Padma Vibhushan 17 Padma Bhushan and 107 Padma Shri awards Thirty-four of the awardees are women and the list also includes 10 persons from the category of ForeignersNRIPIOOCI and 13 posthumous awardees PTI ACB SKL SMN SMN

New Delhi [India], January 16 (ANI): India on Sunday completed its one year of COVID-19 vaccination drive and during this period, over 156.76 crore vaccine doses have been administered.

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], December 28 (ANI): Serum Institute of India on Tuesday expressed gratitude to the Union Health Ministry for granting Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine Covovax.