India

Fiji’s Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong said they received the confirmation from the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit (MDU) at the Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne

In a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said oxygen would be released to hospitals from armed forces reserves and retired medical military personnel would join Covid-19 health facilities.

Where possible, military medical infrastructure will be made available to civilians, a government statement said, as new coronavirus infections hit a record peak for a fifth day.

Virologists said more infectious variants of the virus, including an Indian one, have fuelled the resurgence.

The UK has begun sending ventilators and oxygen concentrator devices; the EU members are seeking to send oxygen and medicine.

The US said it would provide raw materials for vaccines that had previously been under export controls.

India's capital Delhi has extended its lockdown as overcrowded hospitals continue to turn patients away.

The Indian Government has approved plans for more than 500 oxygen generation plants across the country to boost supplies.

India reported 349,691 more cases in the 24 hours to Sunday morning and another 2767 deaths.

It has close to 16 million confirmed cases, second only to the US.

The country is struggling with a second wave, raising more fears about its overwhelmed health care system.

Crowds have formed outside hospitals in major cities which are filled to capacity. A number of people have died while waiting for oxygen.

Families are waiting hours to perform funeral rites, Reuters news agency reports, with at least one Delhi crematorium resorting to building pyres in its car park in order to cope with the numbers arriving.

Officials are checking if the variant, where two mutations come together in the same virus, may be more infectious or less affected by vaccines.

Some 10,787 samples from 18 Indian states also showed up 771 cases of known variants - 736 of the UK, 34 of the South African and one Brazilian.

Officials say the variants are not linked to a spike in cases in India.

India reported 47,262 cases and 275 deaths on Wednesday - the sharpest daily rise this year.

The joint commitment was made following the first leaders' meeting of the so-called Quad - a group formed in 2007.

The vaccines - expected to be the single-dose Johnson & Johnson product - are set to be manufactured in India.

The US said the "massive joint commitment" would initially focus on delivering doses to South East Asia.

The bird's owner was impaled in the groin by the knife as the animal tried to escape. The man died on the way to hospital from a loss of blood.

Police are now searching for 15 more people involved in the event, which took place in the village of Lothunur in Telangana state earlier this week.

The animal was held at a police station before being transferred to a farm.

Some 60 people were on board when the packed bus veered off a bridge and fell into the canal on Tuesday in Sidhi district.

Officials say that seven passengers, including the driver, managed to swim to the shore. Rescue teams are looking for the remaining passengers.

The state government has ordered an inquiry into the accident.

Eyewitnesses say that the driver lost control and the bus hit the boundary of the bridge before falling into the Sharda canal.

The floodwaters burst open a dam and a deluge of water poured through a valley in the state of Uttarakhand.

Villages have been evacuated, but officials warned more than 125 people may have been caught in the torrent.

Video showed the floodwater barrelling through the area, leaving destruction in its wake.

One witness said a wall of water and rock sped down the Dhauli Ganga river so quickly there was no time to sound the alarm.

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the fruit would now be called kamalam, Sanskrit for the lotus flower.

The lotus is sacred to Hindus and is India's national flower.

Relations have nosedived in recent months between India and China, whose troops are locked in a tense stand-off along their long Himalayan frontier.