Russian travel agencies are selling package tours for Russians to receive foreign Covid-19 vaccines abroad amid frustration among some Russians that their domestically produced vaccines have not been approved internationally, Reuters reported.

Russia has not registered any foreign-made vaccines for use. It has approved four domestically produced vaccines including the two-dose Sputnik V. None of Russia's shots are approved by the World Health Organisation or European Union.

Most of the trips, costing around 600-850 euros, are to Serbia, and one firm was offering Germany as a destination. They allow customers to receive one of four different vaccines, including the one developed with Pfizer, Russia's Association of Tour Operators said in a statement.

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has said that Covid-19 transmission was currently highest in 12- to 15-year-olds and that almost all unvaccinated children would get infected at some point.

“There is definitely substantial transmission happening in this age group,” Whitty told lawmakers. “In fact, the age group we're talking about is the one in which the highest rate of transmission is currently occurring, as far as we can tell.”

Whitty said vaccines would reduce the risk of infection by 50 per cent, possibly more.

United States President Joe Biden has opened a Covid-19 summit of world leaders with a promise to donate a “historic” extra 500 million vaccines to countries struggling to push back against the pandemic.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck crisis,” Biden said. The pledge from Biden at the summit, held virtually from the White House, brings the total US commitment of donated vaccines to 1.1 billion — more than the rest of the world combined, according to an AFP report.

“The US has already shipped 160m of these doses to 100 countries,” the White House said in a statement. “For every one shot we've put in an American arm to date, we are now donating three shots globally.”

Sindh has detected 784 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the tally of infections to 452,328.

According to a handout from the Chief Minister's Office, the province's death toll has reached 7,310 after 15 more people succumbed to the virus.

Moreover, 148 people recovered from Covid-19 while 14,751 tests were conducted in the 24-hour time period.

A report from the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has found that children under the age of two are not getting the food and nutrients necessary for growth, leading to “irreversible developmental harm”.

"While we have known this for years, there has been little progress on providing the right kind of nutritious and safe foods for the young. In fact, the ongoing Covid-19 disruptions could make the situation much worse,” Unicef executive director Henrietta Fore says in the report.

The number of new Covid-19 cases continued to fall last week, with 3.6 million new cases reported globally, down from 4m new infections the previous week, AP quotes the World Health Organisation as saying.

In its latest update on the pandemic, WHO said there were major decreases in cases in two regions: a 22 per cent fall in the Middle East and a 16pc drop in Southeast Asia.

The UN health agency said there were just under 60,000 deaths in the past week, a 7pc decline. While in Southeast Asia, it reported a 30pc decrease in Covid-19 deaths.

Sunrisers Hyderabad fast bowler Thangarasu Natarajan has tested positive for Covid-19, AP reports.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) said in a statement today that the left-arm paceman has isolated himself from the rest of the squad.

Six other members of the team, including allrounder Vijay Shankar, were identified as close contacts of Natarajan and were also placed in isolation.

The United States has donated almost 15.8 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Pakistan so far, according to a statement from the US Embassy.

The statement said the representatives from the US Embassy, Islamabad, also visited a vaccination centre in the capital today to "witness utilisation" of some of the recently-donated 10.3m Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses by the United States.

Monday's announcement from Pfizer and BioNTech that a low dose of their coronavirus vaccine proved safe and effective for children ages five to 11 in a clinical trial has come as a relief to many parents anxiously awaiting the chance to protect their children — though some have expressed hesitancy, citing the lack of large-scale studies.

The highly contagious Delta variant of the virus has collided with the start of the US academic year, sending infections among young children soaring and forcing thousands of schools to shut for days or even weeks.

The companies said they plan to file for regulatory authorisation as soon as possible for a 10-microgramme dose for children ages five to 11 after it led to a strong immune response in a 2,268-participant trial.

Read the full Reuters story here.