Tag: certificate

CoWIN Update to Allow for Correction of Personal Details on Vaccine Certificate

CoWIN vaccination certificates are used while traveling and helps access several other premises.

New Delhi: The government has announced a new update that enables applicants to correct any inadvertent errors in name, year of birth and gender printed on the CoWIN vaccination certificate. Users can make the correction through the CoWIN website.

“Now you can make corrections to your name, year of birth and gender on your CoWIN vaccination certificates if inadvertent errors have come in,” the official handle of the Aarogya Setu app tweeted on Wednesday.

The CoWIN vaccination certificates are used at the time of travel and helps in accessing several other premises.

Earlier, the government had also allowed people who are vaccinated to update their status voluntarily on the Aarogya Setu app through a self-assessment process.

Those who have got the single dose of the vaccine will get a single blue border with vaccination status on their home screen along with Aarogya Setu logo with a single tick.

A ‘Blue Shield’ with double tick will appear on the app for those who are fully vaccinated, 14 days after the second dose. This double tick will appear after verification of vaccination status from the CoWIN portal.

Vaccination status can be updated through the mobile number used for CoWIN registration.

Brazil Drug Regulator Rejects Bharat Biotech’s Application To Import Covaxin

Despite setbacks, Anivsa’s decisions thus far don’t endanger Bharat Biotech’s application for emergency use authorisation in Brazil.

New Delhi: The Brazilian health regulator Anvisa – short for Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitári – has denied a request to important doses of Covaxin, made in India by Hyderabad-based pharma company Bharat Biotech, for use in the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination drive, LiveMint reported.

Bharat Biotech has an agreement to supply 20 million doses of Covaxin to the Brazilian government through Precisa Medicamentos, its partner in the country, according to The Print.

India’s Union health ministry had appealed to Anvisa to authorise the application to import 20 million doses of Covaxin into Brazil.

This move by Brazil’s regulator came after it had also denied a certificate of good manufacturing practices to Bharat Biotech on March 30.

As The Wire Science also reported, Bharat Biotech had failed to comply to manufacturing standards, including not adhering to demands for documentation and maintaining the integrity of containers and methods of analysis.

LiveMint reported that the firm had provided an action plan to the regulator vis-à-vis corrective actions, but Anvisa said that the measures adopted thus far had failed to inspire confidence.

In its statement, Anvisa said that if these issues persist, the vaccine’s quality could be affected and thus potentially endanger its recipients. The statement also said that Bharat Biotech’s action plan also seemed insufficient in the face of the quality issues.

In a press release published in January 2021, Bharat Biotech had announced that “supplies to the private market would be based upon receipt of market authorisation from Anvisa”. In light of Anisa’s rejection, a spokesperson from Bharat Biotech told The Hindu,“The requirements pointed out during inspection will be fulfilled. The timelines for fulfilment is under discussion with the Brazil’s National Regulatory Agency and will be resolved soon.”

According to Indian Express, Bharat Biotech’s agreement to supply 20 million doses to Brazil is still active. The firm also said that the partnership with Precisa Medicamentos was a long-term commitment and would continue. In addition, Precisa Medicamentos is also expected to appeal Anvisa’s decision.

Also read: Brazil Scrambles for India-Made Vaccines to Jumpstart Inoculations

Despite these setbacks, however, the statements indicated – based on Brazilian laws – that Anivsa’s decisions thus far don’t endanger Bharat Biotech’s application for emergency use authorisation in Brazil.

Gagandeep Kang, a professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore, told Indian Express that both Bharat Biotech and India’s Central Drug Standards Control Organisation “should take” Anvisa’s verdict “very seriously, and either do an independent inspection and confirm whether there really is a problem that needs to be corrected or push back.”

Bharat Biotech can reapply for the certification of its facilities after it completes the remediation process, according to the report.

In India itself, as on March 23, only 8% of all vaccine doses administered to frontline and healthcare workers since January 16 were of Covaxin; the rest were of Covishield, the vaccine candidate manufactured by Serum Institute of India under license from AstraZeneca Plc.

Vinod K. Paul, a member of NITI Aayog and head of the body overseeing India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive, had admitted that Covaxin’s share in the total number of vaccine doses was so low because of vaccine hesitancy rooted in the drug regulator’s controversial approval in early January.

One of the principal factors that contributed to Anivsa’s decision to push back on the application is reportedly that Bharat Biotech has allegedly failed to check the method it uses to inactivate the novel coronavirus.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine candidates, Covaxin delivers a relatively small number of viral particles to the body. These particles are first modified to keep them from replicating within the human body.

As a result, any concerns over the method by which Bharat Biotech inactivates the viral particles before using them in the vaccine doses are likely to affect perceptions of the vaccine’s safety and vaccine hesitancy.

‘Don’t Need Hindutva Certificate’: Maharashtra CM, Governor Spar Over Reopening Temples

Koshyari had asked Thackeray if he had turned “secular” considering that he had denied permission to reopen temples in the state.

Mumbai: Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray have got into an acrimonious exchange over the opening of temples in the state.

In a two-page letter, written with a clear sarcastic overtone, Koshyari had asked Thackeray if he had turned “secular” since he had denied permission to reopen the temples in the state. In response, Thackeray retorted that he did not need a “Hindutva certificate” from anyone.

Maharashtra has been one of the worst affected states in India in the pandemic. With no let up in COVID-19 cases in the state, Thackeray had decided to keep temples shut, citing that they lead to large gatherings which pose a risk of spreading the disease.

Koshyari’s letter is in line with BJP’s, which has, from time to time, demanded that temples be reopened.

“You have been a strong votary of Hindutva. You had publicly espoused your devotion for Lord Rama by visiting Ayodhya after taking charge as Chief Minister. You had visited the Vitthal Rukmini Mandir in Pandharpur and performed the puja on Ashadhi Ekadashi,” Koshyari had written in his letter.

He had attempted a further jibe with a question on whether Thackeray had received a “divine premonition” which has made him constantly postpone the reopening of places of worship. “Have you turned ‘secular’ yourself…a term you hated?” he had asked in the letter.

Also read: President’s Rule in Maharashtra: How Constitutional were Governor Koshyari’s Actions?

That Thackeray did not take this letter lightly became apparent in his response on Tuesday, October 13. The chief minister said, “You ask if I am getting divine premonitions? Maybe you get them, I am not so big,” he wrote back in Marathi.

The governor had also accused the CM of locking up “gods and goddesses” during the lockdown. It is “ironical” that bars, restaurants, and beaches were allowed to open, and “our gods and goddesses have been condemned to stay in the lockdown”, Koshyari had written in his letter.

Last month, amid the controversy around actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Koshyari had chosen to meet actor Kangana Ranaut at the governor’s residence in South Mumbai. Ranaut, who had been openly attacking the Maharashtra government, and Mumbai police in particular had claimed that she felt “insecure” in the city and that Mumbai resembled PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir).

The governor’s decision to meet Ranaut despite her constant attack on the state government had not gone well with the Shiv Sena and in his response today, Thackeray, without taking Ranaut’s name said, “Inviting people who call Mumbai PoK with smiles does not fall into my definition of Hindutva”.

Following Koshyari’s letter, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar also sent out a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi slamming the governor’s approach towards the issue. “I am shocked and surprised to know that the letter of the Governor was released to the media and also the kind of language used in the letter which does not behove well for a person who holds a constitutional position,” Pawar wrote to the prime minister.

He further added, “I am sure you [PM Modi] too would have noticed the intemperate language that has been used. In the very Preamble of our Constitution the word ‘secular’ is added that equates and shields all religions and hence the Chair of the Chief Minister must uphold such tenets of the Constitution. Unfortunately Honourable Governor’s letter to the Chief Minister invokes the connotation as if written to the leader of a political party,” Pawar retorted in his letter posted on his social media handle.

This is the second letter by Pawar against Koshyari to the prime minister. Pawar and Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut had in April written to Modi, complaining about Koshyari’s “interference” in the state’s administrative work.

Koshyari and the present tri-party government of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, has been at loggerheads right since the government was formed in the state. Koshyari is a staunch RSS supporter, a former BJP functionary and has openly sided with the BJP on more than one occasion.

In November last year, the governor had participated in a covert swearing-in ceremony of BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as the state’s CM and NCP leader Ajit Pawar as the deputy CM in the early hours of the day. Within three days, however, the duo had to resign after failing to garner enough MLAs to form a government.

Koshyari has remained critical of the Sena-led government and during the COVID-19 crisis in the state has openly criticised its handling of the problems.