China is vaccinating almost 14 million people a day, the fastest pace in the world, as the country races to protect its Covid-19 advantage in the face of major Western nations reopening their economies.

The ramp up in shots is being helped by a flareup of cases in the eastern province of Anhui and northeastern region of Liaoning. Videos on social media showed citizens rushing to get their vaccines, with long queues at inoculation sites despite heavy rain.

Drug firm Shilpa Medicare on Monday said its arm has entered into a definitive agreement with Dr Reddy's Laboratories for manufacturing of Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V.

The company, via its wholly owned subsidiary Shilpa Biologicals Pvt Ltd (SBPL), has entered into a three year definitive agreement with Dr Reddy's Laboratories for production-supply of the Sputnik V vaccine from its integrated biologics R&D cum manufacturing center at Dharwad, Karnataka, Shilpa Medicare said in a regulatory filing.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the coronavirus variant first detected in India can spread like wildfire among those who haven't received a vaccine against the disease.

The variant is becoming the dominant strain in some parts of the country such as Bolton and Blackburn, Xinhua news agency quoted hancock as saying to Sky News on Sunday.

The Centre would provide five million doses of vaccines to various states in the next three days. The largest part of this supply — over 1 million would go to Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The health ministry said 200 million doses have been made available to the states free of cost, so far.

Maharashtra, which would receive 50,000 doses in the next three days, has also got the largest supply of vaccines from the Centre.

L&T Technology Services Ltd (LTTS) on Sunday said it has set up a Covid isolation centre in Mysuru.

LTTS has also opened a similar facility in Bengaluru.

The centre in Mysuru is fully operational and available to take care of employees and their families who exhibit mild symptoms or are suspected to be Covid-19 positive, a statement said.

India's COVID-19 tally mounted to 2,49,65,463 on Monday with 2,81,386 fresh COVID-19 cases, the lowest in 27 days, while the death toll climbed to 2,74,390 with 4,106 fatalities, according to Union health ministry data.

The number of active cases stands at 35,16,997, accounting for 14.09 per cent of the total infections. The national recovery rate has improved to 84.81 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The first batch of 10,000 doses of 2DG medicine for treating COVID-19 patients would be launched today, i.e. May 17, the defence ministry said on Sunday.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh and health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will release the first batch of the drug, marking a landmark in India's fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thousands of people were evacuated from low-lying areas along its western coast as a powerful Cyclone Tauktae is expected to make landfall in the state of Gujarat.

IMD DG Mrutyunjay Mohapatra informed that cyclone Tauktae is very likely to cross the Gujarat coast between Porbandar and Mahuva in Bhavnagar district around the early morning of May 18.He further said that heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected to occur in coastal areas of Gujarat on May 18.

In the wake of cyclone Tauktae, Vistara and IndiGo on Saturday issued travel advisories stating that some of their flights are likely to be impacted.

As per the advisory issued by Vistara today, flights to and from Chennai, Thiruvanathapuram, Kochi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Ahmedabad might be impacted till May 17 due to the adverse weather conditions expected over the Arabian Sea triggered by cyclone Tauktae.

The central government will supply 19 million vaccine doses to states in the next two weeks (from May 16 to 31) free of cost for the vaccination of 45-plus age group, health care and frontline workers, the health ministry said in a statement.

Of the total doses, 16 million will be that of Covishield and almost 3 million of Covaxin.

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