Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines lying in a tray. Photo: Mat Napo/Unsplash In July 2021, the WHO reported that 450,000 donated doses across eight African countries had expired before they could be administered. This is a…

Dr Manish (fourth from right) speaks at the FORDA press conference at Safdarjung Hospital, December 31, 2021. Photo: Banjot Kaur/The Wire Science New Delhi: The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association (FORDA) called off its protests in…

A waterlogged road in Chennai following rains on December 30, 2021. Photo: PTI New Delhi: Heavy rains in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, December 30, led to waterlogging, congestion on the roads and three deaths due to rain-related electrocutions,…

A modified photo of a train passing through a part of the Bhagwan Mahavir Sanctuary. Original photo: Purshi/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Kochi: India made some big promises to fight climate change on the global stage. But back home,…

A modified image of an electron microscope image of the novel coronavirus. Original image: NIAID/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 As 2021 draws to a close, here are 10 major developments in India’s healthcare sector that defined the year. 1. India’s…

A health worker takes a break in front of a fan in New Delhi, August 2020. Photo: Reuters Even before COVID-19, protests by health workers in India were on the rise. According to one database, India had the most such protests in 85…

The Wire Science has had the opportunity to publish some excellent reporters, writers and communicators in 2021. A big thanks to all of you, plus the independent experts who helped us fact-check and contextualise every detail in our…

People in a crowded quarantine centre in Kolkata in March 2021. Kolkata is one of eight districts today reporting a TPR of more than 10%. Photo: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri NITI Aayog member and COVID vaccination drive chief Vinod K. Paul…

Photo: Toa Heftiba/Unsplash Drug addiction is as much a problem of supply as it is of demand, yet the mere availability of addictive substances doesn’t produce an epidemic of addiction. The policy approach to deaddiction has focused thus…

An artist’s conception of the Parker solar probe in a stream of solar particles. Image: NASA 2021 was a year of many firsts. One of them was that NASA Parker solar probe entered the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or the solar corona. NASA…

A 3D print of a spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 in front of a 3D print of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle. Photo: NIH/Flickr, public domain A new study has found that if you recover from an infection of the omicron variant, you may also be able to…

A woman holds a small bottle labeled ‘Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine’ and a medical syringe in front of the Novavax logo. Photo: Reuters/Dado Ruvic New Delhi: Of the vaccines against COVID-19 approved in India, Covovax would be a better…

Image: PIRO4D/pixabay New Delhi: There is now clear experimental and clinical data supporting very high immune escape potential of the omicron variant, but initial estimates show the severity of illness being lower than what was seen in…

Part of a page from the calendar; the text (not shown) here is headed ‘Sacred Feminine and the Matrix’. Source: IKS Centre/IIT Kharagpur The political right in India has held up Vedic culture as “Indian” culture, and the idea that it could…

Dead bodies of those who died of COVID-19 float on the Ganga in Bihar’s Chausa. Photo: Twitter As the COVID-19 outbreak in India swelled earlier this year, there were reports of people dumping the bodies of those who had succumbed to the…

A health worker conducts COVID-19 testing at Baratooti Bazar, as coronavirus cases surge across the national capital, in New Delhi, Friday, November 13, 2020. Photo: PTI/Atul Yadav New Delhi: India has recorded 781 cases of the Omicron…

Monsanto Co’s Roundup for sale in Encinitas, California, June 2017. Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake/File Photo Monsanto’s foundational strategy was to become a wizardly handmaiden to industry rather than going direct to consumers. The product…

A giant moray eel getting cleaned by a cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus). Photo: Silke Baon, CC BY 2.0 An elaborate system exists in the ocean in which some fish present themselves to be cleaned at designated ‘cleaning stations’ visited…

A traveller receives a test for COVID-19 at a pre-departure testing facility, outside Sydney Airport, November 29, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Loren Elliott Research by South African scientists suggests that omicron could displace the delta…

A healthcare worker fills a syringe with a dose of Covaxin, AIIMS Delhi, January 16, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi Bengaluru: Less than three days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that elderly citizens will be eligible to…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking at Ramlila Maidan, December 2019. Photo: PTI In a televised address on Christmas day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive to include booster doses for frontline…

A representative photo of a nurse at work in a hospital in Mumbai, August 2018. Photo: Reuters NITI Aayog released its annual health index report on December 27, with an unsurprising headline: Kerala and Tamil Nadu were the top two states.…

A man in a Santa Claus costume helps an auto-rickshaw driver wear a protective face mask in Ahmedabad, December 24, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Amit Dave New Delhi: An expert panel of the country’s central drug authority has recommended granting…

Photo: Diana Polekhina/Unsplash, collage: The Wire Science Before rolling out booster doses, we need to address a more fundamental question: what do we want to achieve with them? If our objective is to prevent severe disease,…

American biologist E.O. Wilson poses for a portrait in Lexington, Massachusetts, October 21, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Gretchen Ertl/File Photo Wilson was considered one of the world’s leading authorities on natural history and conservation. In…

A medic prepares a dose of Covaxin vaccine for a beneficiary at Sir J.J. Hospital Hospital, Mumbai, January 27, 2021. Photo: PTI/Mitesh Bhuvad New Delhi: Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is likely to be the only COVID-19 vaccine available, for now,…

File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: PMO Nearly 12 months ago, on January 3, Drug Controller General V.G. Somani announced that his office had approved the emergency-use of Covaxin and Covishield against infections of the…

Representative image of a computer programme running a DNA analysis. Photo: NASA/Flickr, CC BY NC 2.0 Researchers sequence DNA to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks that make it up: adenine, thymine, cytosine and…

An aerial view of a neighbourhood flooded by the Cachoeira river in Itabuna, Brazil, December 26, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Leonardo Benassatto Itabuna, Brazil: Two dams gave way in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia after weeks of heavy…

Former health minister Harsh Vardhan holds up a vial of Covaxin, AIIMS Delhi, January 16, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/File Photo A senior epidemiologist at AIIMS who is the principal investigator of Covaxin trials for adults and…