Coronavirus Vaccination will be developed in 1.5 to 2 years: Health Ministry

New Delhi : Addressing the coronavirus outbreak situation in India, the Union Health Ministry announced that it will take around 1.5 to 2 years to develop the vaccine for the contagious disease.

“We have managed to isolate the coronavirus, we have 11 such isolates,” the health ministry said.

The health ministry advised people to not panic about the situation and asked them to maintain an effective social distance from everyone.

“Mask is not always necessary, if a person maintains effective social distance, mask is not needed. There is no need to panic,” said Luv Aggarwal, joint secretary, health ministry, said in a conference.

“Right now, luckily for India, we do not have any community transmission. We have only a few cases that have come from outside and they have primarily affected their close family members,” he said.

The health ministry also mentioned that there has been no evidence which could confirm that the high temperature will kill coronavirus on its own.

“All facts about it are still being studied. There are no confirmatory studies. It is generally expected that the virus if it is in higher temperatures may have difficulty in surviving, but it is not confirmed,” Lav Aggarwal said.

“Though flu is not common in summer, no study or evidence that suggests high temperature kills coronavirus.”

Till date, India has registered 73 positive cases of coronavirus – 56 are Indians and 17 are foreign nationals.

India has also evacuated 900 Indians from other countries.

"The Government of India has evacuated 900 Indian citizens along with 48 belonging to other nations like Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, China, US, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa, and Peru," Aggarwal added.