India is the world’s capital in terms of producing drugs and vaccines. Dr. Bhargava, ICMR, said “Any vaccine candidate which is being produced or developed in any part of the world will ultimately have to be scaled up by India or China. Because these two countries are major producers of vaccines in the world, and India supplies 60 percent of the vaccines to the world that all developed nations are aware of it. And therefore, they are in communication with India for the coronavirus vaccine distribution ultimately, if it is developed to the whole world.”
Indian scientists, doctors, and ICMR are already on their toes to fast track the trials for the two indigenous coronavirus vaccines. The chain for the viral infection can only be put to a halt with the help of a much-needed coronavirus vaccine.
ICMR Director General in his latest interview said “There are two indigenous vaccine candidates and they have gone successful toxicity studies in rats, mice and rabbits. These data are submitted to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) following which both these candidate vaccines got clearance to start the early phase of human trials.”
Recently, the DCGI gave its approval to the pharma giant Zydus Cadila to go ahead with its human trials. Furthermore, AIIMS Patna is one of the top-notch healthcare centers chosen for the human trials of Covaxin. Currently, the trial for the coronavirus vaccine Covaxin, which is co-developed by ICMR and BBIL is carrying out its Phase I and Phase II human trials in over a 1000 volunteers. These coronavirus vaccines have also undergone extensive preclinical tests to prove their efficiency. And the preclinical trials for other coronavirus vaccine candidates are going on at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.
India is indubitably a fore-runner when it comes to developing a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus. More than half a million people across the world have succumbed to death due the infection. In these difficult times, a vaccine against the virus is our only hope!