More than six months after a global pandemic, the search for a “safe and effective” vaccine against the new coronavirus continues. When will India get a COVID-19 vaccine? In response to this question, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that the COVID-19 vaccine could be available in India by the first half of 2021.
COVID-19 Vaccine Candidates in India:
Three candidate vaccines are in different stages of clinical trials in the country. Developed by Bharat Biotech International Limited in conjunction with the Indian Council for Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology, Covaxin was India’s first indigenous vaccine candidate against the novel COVID-19. Covaxin is currently in phase II human trials in the country.
“There were no ‘side effects’ in the phase I trial of Covaxin,” said Dr. E Venkata Rao, the trial’s principal investigator at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, college of medical sciences.
ZyCoV-D, developed by Zydus Cadila, began its phase II clinical trials on August 6. “The company reports that the doses of the vaccine administered to healthy volunteers in the phase I clinical trial, which began on July 15, 2020, have been well tolerated,” said Cadila Healthcare.
The Pune-based drug maker Serum Institute of India recently started the advanced clinical trial of the vaccine conducted by the University of Oxford in the country. The vaccine manufacturer selected 17 sites across the country for the trial. About 1,600 people between the ages of 18 and 25 will enroll in the clinical trial.
The Russian Fund for Direct Investment signed an agreement with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories to conduct a clinical trial and distribution of Sputnik V in India. Under the agreement, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund will supply 100 million doses of Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine to the Indian pharmaceutical company.
Who will get the COVID-19 vaccine first?
The COVID-19 vaccine will first be made available to those who need it most, regardless of their ability to pay, the Health Minister reiterated. The central government has been considering the emergency authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine, especially for older people and people who work in high-risk settings, Harsh Vardhan said.
To allay fears about the safety aspect of vaccines, he previously said: “I will be the first to offer myself to receive the COVID vaccine, if people have a confidence deficit.”
“We are not lagging behind anyone around the world in our efforts to contribute to the COVID vaccine … In India we have around 7-8 candidate vaccines, three of them in clinical trial phases and the rest in clinical trials, “Vardhan said previously.
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