New Delhi: In a major development, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has given approval to Pune based Serum Institute of India (SII) to conduct Phase II and III clinical trials of Oxford University-Astra Zeneca Covid19 vaccine (Covishield) in India. Officials said that SII is aiming to begin the human trials very soon with around 4,000 to 5,000 volunteers.
The DCGI has given the approval to SII at a time when two indigenous Covid19 vaccine are under phase I and II human trials. It may be mentioned here that SII signed an agreement with Oxford University and Astra Zeneca in June to supply one billion doses to India and other low and middle-income countries.
Earlier, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhusan has said that the central government will provide all necessary support to anybody who intends to bring COVID19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, director-general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Balram Bhargava has reportedly said that it is difficult to predict whether or not India will see a second wave of COVID19 infections.
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"It is also not possible to clarify whether there will be smaller peaks at different times due to varied geography of the country," said Bhargava.
The statement given by Bhargava assumes significance following the fact that ICMR earlier said: "it's not possible to give a clear prediction as far as COVID 19 is concerned as it's a new disease which keeps changing its behaviour."
India on Monday still continues to improve the case fatality rate (CFR) with 2.11 per cent which is one of the lowest in the world.
As many as 40,574 people have recovered in the last 24 hours taking the total recovery number to 11,86,203 with a rate of 65.77 per cent. The difference between cured and active COVID cases in India now stands to more than 6 lakhs.
Significantly, India has tested 2,02,02,858 COVID samples to date. With 3,81,027 samples being tested in the last 24 hours, the number of test per million population has increased to 14640. Interestingly, 24 states and UTs have reported higher testing per million population than the national average.
In a related development, the Health Ministry has implemented electronic vaccine network (eVIN), an innovative technological solution aimed at strengthening immunisation supply chain system across the country.
