The Serum Institute of India, the local maker of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, said yesterday it expected the British and Indian governments to approve shots for emergency use within a few days.
"You will be hearing some good news from the UK very soon," Serum's Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla told reporters, adding that approval from the Indian regulator would likely follow shortly.
"By January, we should have the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine licensed."
The company has already made 40 million to 50 million doses of the vaccine and will be able to ramp up capacity to around 100 million a month by March when a new facility comes online, Poonawalla said.
India wants to deliver 600 million coronavirus shots in the next six to eight months starting in January. The country's drug regulator is also considering similar approvals for the Pfizer /BioNTech vaccine and another developed by India's Bharat Biotech.
New variant in South Korea
Three cases of the particularly infectious virus variant that recently emerged in Britain have been confirmed in South Korea, health authorities say, in three members of a London-based family who arrived in the country on December 22.
China jails journalist
A Chinese citizen journalist is jailed for four years for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer says.
Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, is sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.
Vaccine delay
Pfizer postpones the delivery of new batches of its vaccine to eight European nations including Spain, the Spanish health ministry says, a day after the EU began its immunization campaign.
The Spanish branch of Pfizer informed Madrid on Sunday night of the delay in shipments to the eight nations due to a "problem in the loading and shipment process" at its plant in Belgium.
Africa surge
South Africa becomes the first African nation to log one million cases, official data shows, as authorities consider reimposing restrictions to battle a second wave of infections driven by the new variant.
Pandemic powers
Sweden's government presents a temporary pandemic law giving it new powers to curb the spread of the virus, which it says it hopes to have in place by January and would enable it to close down businesses, shopping malls or public transport.
Sydney cancels New Year cheer
Plans to let thousands of frontline workers celebrate the new year around Sydney Harbour are ditched as authorities work to suppress a growing cluster of virus cases in Australia's most populous city.
China heeds winter wave
Chinese authorities step up health measures to snuff out the threat of a virus resurgence, imposing strict checks across Beijing, where suspected cases have been detected, while workers in full PPE spray boats and airport arrival areas.
Empty Saudi skies
Saudi Arabia extends its suspension of commercial passenger flights by at least one week and possibly two because of concerns over the new virus variant.
Tourists still come
Sri Lanka welcomes its first foreign tourists in nine months, with a charter flight carrying 185 passengers from Ukraine landing south of the capital, even as the island faces a surge in cases.
1.76 million dead
The coronavirus has killed at least 1,765,049 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.
At least 80,686,633 cases have been registered.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 333,140 deaths, followed by Brazil with 191,139, India with 147,901, and Mexico with 122,426.