Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday shared on Twitter that he held a meeting to review how India plans to distribute covid-19 vaccine when one gets clinical approval.
The meeting was held among top officials including those from NITI Aayog to evaluate the covid-19 vaccine strategy in the country.
“Held a meeting to review India’s vaccination strategy and the way forward. Important issues related to progress of vaccine development, regulatory approvals and procurement were discussed,” PM Modi said in a tweet.
The PM further said that various issues including progress of vaccine development, priority groups and vaccine roll out were dicussed in the meeting.
“Reviewed various issues like prioritisation of population groups, reaching out to healthcare workers, cold-chain Infrastructure augmentation, adding vaccinators, and tech platform for vaccine roll-out,” PM Modi added.
In India, several companies are currently involved in conducting late stage trials of their vaccine candidate. Many have announced that the late stage trials of their vaccine have reportd over 90 per cent efficacy.
“Five vaccines are in advanced stages of development in India, out of which 4 are in Phase II/III and one is in Phase-I/II. Countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Qatar, Bhutan, Switzerland, Bahrain, Austria and South Korea – have shown keen interest in partnering for vaccine development of Indian vaccines and use thereof,” the government said in a statement on Friday.
Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla on Thursday said that Oxford and AstraZeneca’s vaccine should be available for healthcare workers by February 2021 and by April for general public, according to IANS.
He further informed that the vaccine will be priced somewhere around Rs 1,000 and will require two shots to develop antibodies against the virus.
Meanwhile, India reported 46,232 new Covid cases, pushing India’s total cases tally to 90,50,598. With 564 new deaths, the death toll mounted to 1,32,726.
Image Courtesy: Twitter
