Big announcement on coronavirus vaccine in India
New Delhi : Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday made an announcement that a vaccine will be available in India by early next year and there could be vaccines from more than one source.
"We're expecting that early next year we should have vaccine in the country from maybe more than one source. Our expert groups are already formulating and devising strategies to plan on how to roll out the distribution of the vaccines in the country, who do we give the vaccine first and then of course we are strengthening the cold chain facilities," Dr Harsh Vardhan said during a meeting of the Group of Ministers.
Currently, around four vaccines are under pre-clinical trials in India. Earlier, Harsh Vardhan had announced that the vaccine is likely to arrive in India in the first quarter of 2021.
On Sunday, the minister had said that considering the large population size of India, one vaccine or vaccine manufacturer will not be able to fulfil the requirements of vaccinating the whole country.
"Therefore, we are open to assessing the feasibility of introducing several COVID-19 vaccines in the country as per their availability for the Indian population," he had said.
On the world tally, India is the second worst affected country from coronavirus after United States.
The number of new coronavirus infections reported daily across the country dropped below 60,000, even as the caseload surged to 71,75,880 and the total recoveries crossed 62 lakh, the Union Health Ministry data said today.
