New Delhi: Scientists and drug manufacturers around the world are making rapid efforts to find a safe vaccine against COVID-19. Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan informed that India’s first indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine, COVAXIN, may be available by the end of this year. Recently Serum Institute has said that it has started human trials in India. AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be available by the end of the year. So the first shots are likely to be available to Indians by the end of 2020.
In addition to COVAXIN jointly developed by Bharat Biotech and ICMR, the Zydus Cadila ZyCoV-D vaccine and the vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India of Oxford-AstraZeneca are being tested nationwide. According to the report, the government is considering an initial order of around 5 million doses of the Corona virus vaccine for some groups such as frontline workers and army personnel.
The Health Minister of India said that the effectiveness of India’s vaccine would be completed by the end of the trial year. He also said that the Oxford vaccine was already being processed at a parallel end to reduce the time needed to bring it to market.
According to the minister, Bharat Biotech and the other two candidates of Zydus Cadila will require at least one more month for production and phased introduction. The Health Minister also said that the vaccines may be ready to be used by the first quarter of 2021 if the vaccines are successful.
Dr. Vardhan pointed out that COIVAXIN is an inactivated vaccine generated from the strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated from NIV, Pune, which may be available by the end of 2020. Stating that ICMR and Bharat Biotech had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding, he said that if the test proved successful, priority would be given to provide the vaccine at a cheaper and subsidized rate.
Stating that “test-track-treatment” is the government’s key strategy to move forward in the fight against COVID-19, Dr. Vardhan said that India was home to the world’s vaccine manufacturing industrial base.
Meanwhile, Russia has relied on India’s ability to produce the ‘corona virus vaccine’, named ‘Sputnik V’. On 11 August, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had become the first country in the world to be given regulatory approval for the COVID-19 vaccine. Moscow said the vaccine, developed by the State Gamalaya Institute, would be tested next week on 40,000 people to assess its reliability.
