BENGALURU  SATURDAY  MARCH 13, 2021  `7.00  PAGES 22  LATE CITY EDITION INDIA REVIEWS COVISHIELD AS 10 NATIONS SUSPEND USE The Centre is looking into hospitalisation and deaths in people who took the Covid-19 vaccine by AstraZeneca-Oxford University AUSTRIA, DENMARK REPORT DEATHS NO REASON TO STOP VACCINE, SAYS W.H.O. While Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg have withdrawn the use of one batch of AstraZeneca vaccine, others including Denmark have suspended all batches for two weeks. So far, 22 cases of blood clots have been reported among 3 million people vaccinated in Europe. Austria and Denmark reported one death each due to “severe blood coagulation” ■ “We haven’t found anything of concern with respect to Covishield so far,” said Dr Narendra Arora, adviser to the national panel on Adverse Events Following Immunisation ■ Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said on Friday that there is no reason to stop using AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine 90% OF 2.63 CRORE VACCINATIONS CARRIED OUT SO FAR IN INDIA COMPRISED COVISHIELD CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Seniors still wary of jab in many districts Quad’s vax push for global good I F F AT H F AT H I M A @ Bengaluru To be manufactured by this year-end for world outreach; Japan, US to fund initiative Stand-off at LAC P U S H K A R B A N A K A R @ New Delhi PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Friday participated in the first-ever Quad Summit meet virtually where a combined initiative to boost India’s vaccine manufacturing capacity was announced even as sources said the stand-off against China on the LAC, too, came up for discussion. Dwelling on the vaccine initiative, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said it will leverage strengths from each of the member countries to achieve the target of manufacturing one billion doses by the end of next year. “Japan and the US will finance the initiative while Australia will provide logistical support to the programme,” Shringla said. A joint statement, titled Spirit of the Quad, released after the summit, said the four countries will expand safe, affordable, and effective vaccine production and equitable access to hasten economic recovery and benefit global health. CONTINUED ON: P9 The stand-off in Eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control was discussed during the Quad Summit and members had sympathetic views, sources said Force for global good “We are united by... our commitment to a free, open and inclusive IndoPacific. Our agenda today — covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies — makes the Quad a force for global good,” Modi said Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa takes his first shot of Covaxin at Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru on Friday. The CM, who recovered from Covid-19 last year, has appealed to citizens to take their vaccination without any hesitation | EXPRESS WHILE Karnataka has vaccinated over two lakh senior citizens aged over 60, several districts have shown poor turnout among the eligible sections. Districts officials pointed out that apprehensions among people about the vaccine was why some are hesitant to take the jab. According to data from the Department of Health and Family Welfare, as of March 11, the total number of people vaccinated was 2,17,085. However, districts like Yadgir, Chamarajanagar, Haveri, Koppal and Bagalkot showed lower turnout, not even exceeding 1,500- Factory output -ve, retail inflation up EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi DASHING hopes of a sustained economic recovery industrial , production slipped back to the negative zone by contracting 1.6% in January And, retail in. flation in February shot up to 5.03% driven by food prices and crude oil. The contraction in Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures factory output, comes after a 1.56% growth in December 2020. According to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Friday, the manufacturing sector output contracted 2% in January, while the mining output declined 3.7%. Meanwhile, power generation grew 5.5% in January . The worst performance was witnessed by the capital goods sector, which recorded a contraction of 9.6% during the month under review, followed by a decline of 6.8% in the con- sumer non-durable section and 0.2% in the consumer durables segment. “We remain circumspect regarding the intensity of the rebound in household consumption immediately after the vaccine rollout widens, as some categories of households may choose to rebuild the savings that they had drained during the lockdown and postlockdown period,” said Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist, CONTINUED ON: P15 ICRA. plus vaccinations in each of the districts. Yadgir fared the worst with only 584 senior citizens getting vaccinated, followed by Chamarajanagar with 818 individuals, while Haveri had 1,187 individuals followed by Koppal at 1,235 and Bagalkot at 1,397. With the Health Department estimating the population of 60 years and above as per 2011 Census projections, Yadgir has over 85,659 senior citizens. But with only 584 of them having got the jab, the total achievement of the district stands only at 0.7 per cent. While Chamarajanagar is at 0.8 per cent, Haveri and Bagalkot have achieved 0.9 per cent and Koppal 1.2 per cent. P3 EXPRESS READ Moily gets Sahitya Akademi Award New Delhi: Congress leader M Veerappa Moily will get the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Kannada poetry, ‘Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam’ | P7 ISRO arm to invest D10,000 cr in 5 years Bengaluru: ISRO’s NewSpace India Ltd said it will invest Rs 10,000 crore over the next five years, with a manpower requirement of 300 | P7 SIT quizzes five in CD-gate investigation M A N J U S H E T TA R @ Bengaluru THE Special Investigation Team, probing the sleaze CD row allegedly involving BJP leader Ramesh Jarkiholi, has questioned five people on Friday including a television , journalist and the person who handed over the CD to social activist Dinesh Kallahalli. Another team has gone to Andhra Pradesh to pick up a person, said to be the prime accused in the case. A highly placed source, “The SIT questioned a man and his female friend hailing from Ramanagara. They were brought to the city for interrogation. Another person who had given the CD to Dinesh Kallahalli in Gandinagar, Bengaluru, and two others from the outskirts of the city too have been quesP4 tioned. ACCIDENT BJP, TMC APPROACH EC Members of BJP and TMC met EC officials, seeking a probe into the incident wherein the West Bengal CM got injured. P9