Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said today that India will have a vaccine for the new coronavirus from perhaps more than one source early next year. He made this statement during a meeting with the Group of Ministers. “We hope that early next year we will have the vaccine in the country from perhaps more than one source. Our expert groups are formulating strategies to plan how to implement the distribution of the vaccine in the country,” tweeted the ANI news agency. quoting Harsh Vardhan.
With a peak of 55,342 new cases and 706 deaths in the past 24 hours, India’s Covid-19 count today reached 71,75,881, according to data released by the Union Health Ministry. The coronavirus count includes 8,38,729 active cases and 62,27,296 cases cured and discharged or migrated; Furthermore, with 706 deaths reported by the disease in the last 24 hours, the balance due to the disease is 1,09,856 in the country.
On Sunday, Harsh Vardhan had warned the country’s people to stay away from large congregations and to follow government-issued guidelines regarding precautions in view of the upcoming festival season.
Speaking on his ‘Sunday Samvaad’ show, he said the possibility of further transmission of the new coronavirus during winters as it is a respiratory virus and transmission of respiratory viruses is known to increase during colder weather.
2-dose and 3-dose vaccines
The COVID-19 vaccines currently being tested in India are 2- and 3-dose vaccines. The Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech vaccine requires 2 doses, while the Cadila Healthcare vaccine requires 3 doses. For other vaccines in preclinical stages, the dosage is being tested.
Covid-19 vaccines on trial in India
Currently, two indigenously developed candidate vaccines, one from Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and the other from Zydus Cadila Ltd, are in phase 2 of human clinical trials.
Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca to also manufacture the candidate Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, is conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the candidate in India.
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