COVID-19 Updates In India: Know About Schemes, APPs, Govt Initiatives, Vaccines

• About two-thirds of population in India will be covered under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and those included will get 5 kg of wheat and rice for free in addition to the current 5 kg allocation for the next 3 months and in addition, 1 kg of preferred pulse (based on regional preference) will be given for free to each household under this Food scheme for the next three months. 

Direct benefit transfer related Scheme

• In this scheme, the Govt will now be giving the first instalment upfront for fiscal year starting April 2020 earlier farmers were receiving INR 6,000/- every year through the PM-KISAN scheme (minimum income support scheme) in three equal instalments.
• The Wage has been increased from 182/- to 202/- for MNREGA workers and the wage increase will amount into an additional income of INR 2,000/- per worker.
• During the Lockdown period, 30 million senior citizens, widows, disabled got one-time ex-gratia amount of INR 1,000 in two instalments.
• During the Lockdown period, 200 million woman Jan Dhan account holders to be given ex-gratia amount of INR 500 per month to run the affairs of their household.
• Women under Ujjawala Scheme in 83 million families below poverty linegot free LPG cylinders.

Healthcare related Scheme:

• Medical Insurance Cover of medical insurance cover of Rs 5 million per healthcare worker announced by the Finance Minister and  About 2 million health services and ancillary workers will benefit from such insurance scheme.

Coronavirus Relates Vaccines

Given below are some of the vaccines which were released or are expected to release in the Coming time in India. Currently, there are 30 different Indian companies are trying to produce a vaccine to fight the infection, out of which WHO has given approvals to seven vaccine candidates, which are in different stages of testing and clinical studies now and some of them are given below:

COVAXIN-  This vaccines is developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), in collaboration with ICMR and NIV, Pune was the first vaccine to get regulatory approvals for clinical trials.

Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D- Ahmedabad-based pharma giant, Zydus Cadila announced the start of phase I of its testing process of its novel vaccine candidate earmarked ZyCOV-D last week.

Indian Immunologicals Limited- Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) is another prime vaccine maker based out of India and is overseeing the development of a vaccine in partnership with Griffith University, Australia. 

Mynvax– Mynvax which is a Bengaluru-based medical pharmaceutical startup, made news months back when it announced work on a COVID vaccine which uses a very different approach involving a protein-based vaccine.

AstraZeneca-Serum Institute of India (SII)- AstraZeneca, British-Swedish pharma major, is currently involved in the development of the much talked about adenovirus vector vaccine with the University of Oxford.

Panacea Biotec- Panacea Biotec Limited, Delhi-based biotechnology company, has signed a partnership with a US-based pharma company, Refana Inc to develop, manufacture and distribute an experimental COVID-19 vaccine which is currently in works.

Biological E- The most recent entrant in the vaccine race, Hyderabad-based Biological E is working on developing a novel COVID-19 preventing vaccine which is still in its pre-clinical level.