BHOPAL: Half a dozen more vaccines are on the horizon and will be introduced to fight against Covid-19, said Union minister of health and family welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan, here on Saturday.
He visited the new campus of the National Institute for Research in Environment Health (NIREH), AIIMS Bhopal and CSIR-AMPRI in the Madhya Pradesh state capital on Saturday.
“Six to eight months before the issue used to be a lack of testing. Today we are carrying out over one million Covid-19 tests per day. More than half a dozen vaccines are coming,” he said.
Our professionals continued to work with dedication to ensure India has the best performance against Covid-19 anywhere in the world.
Explaining the expanse of Covid-19 testing in India he said, “Travel three kilometres anywhere in 97% of India you can get a Covid-19 test,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan speaking at a programme in AIIMS Bhopal.
Before 2014, for such tests sample was sent to CDC USA.
Currently, two vaccines are available to the public, it includes Covishield vaccine made by Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Covaxin, being developed by Bharat Biotech.
Next in line is expected to be Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is currently awaiting approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).
It has concluded and phase 3 trials carried out by its Indian partner Dr Reddy’s laboratories and started the process for emergency use approval.
In the recent Union budget, a provision of Rs 35,000 crore for coronavirus vaccination in 2021-22 was announced.