Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that more than four vaccines against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which has claimed the lives of nearly 87,000 people in India, are in advanced stages of preclinical trial in the country.
Harsh Vardhan said in Parliament on Sunday that the government is providing all the necessary support for the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease in the country and that three candidate vaccines are in different phases of clinical trials.
“One hundred and forty-five vaccine candidates around the world are under preclinical evaluation, about 35 in clinical trials. In India, we gave our full support to 30 candidate vaccines; three of them are in advanced trials of phases 1, 2 and 3. More than four in advanced stages of the preclinical trial, ”said Harsh Vardhan at the Lok Sabha during the discussion on the coronavirus pandemic.
The government is closely monitoring the progress of the candidates being evaluated by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited and Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila. Covaxin from Bharat Biotech is one of the pioneers in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine in India. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) has reached a production and clinical trial agreement with AstraZeneca for the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has so far been tested in the largest number of people among the about 200 options around the world.
He also listed a series of measures taken to contain the spread of the viral infection and combat the pandemic in the country.
“On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned the world about such a disease. But we had started working on January 8. By January 17, we had issued a detailed health advisory and began point-of-entry surveillance and community surveillance. On January 30, when the first case was reported in India, the authorities did 162 contact tracing, ”he said.
The Health Minister said that 63.7 million tests have been carried out so far in the country, which is “probably the highest in the world.”
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“Even today, 40 lakh people were kept under community surveillance. More than 1 crore people were tracked by contract. Fifteen thousand people were screened at airports. When the first case was reported in Nepal, 16 lakh people were examined at the border. From March 16 to March 23, more than half of the states have imposed a partial or total blockade ”, he added.
Harsh Vardhan said the family health and welfare ministry has received Rs 893.93 million from the PM-CARES Fund for 50,000 Indian-made ventilators. The National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) under the National Disaster Relief Fund awarded the provision of Rs 11,000 crore to all state governments where the State Disaster Management Funds could be used.
He said that there are 17,000 Covid-19 facilities in the country that have almost 1.8 million beds, 13,000 quarantine centers have 600,000 beds. To handle a pandemic like this in the future, Harsh Vardhan said that work has started under Atmanirbhar Swasthya Bharat in which a package of Rs 65,000 crore has been allocated.
The coronavirus disease count in India passed the 5.4 million mark and the death toll rose to 86,752, according to Health Ministry data as of Sunday.
(With contributions from the agency)
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