New Delhi: Even as India has been trying to find a vaccine for Covid19 disease, the Union Health Ministry has formed a high-level committee of experts to reform India's drug regulatory procedure.
The development took place following reports over delay in approving drugs, research and vaccine development.
The committee chaired by Rajesh Bhushan, OSD to Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will look for fast tracking the approval system.
Sources in the Health Ministry said that drastic change in the drug regulatory regime should reflect global best practices as well as domestic requirements.
Experts from India's pharmaceutical sector, officials from the department of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, ICMR and representatives from AIIMS have been included in the committee.
Officials said that the committee will study the current drug regulatory system and suggest recommendations for reforms.
Meanwhile, India's total Covid19 cases reached to 125101 with 69597 active cases, 51783 cured, 3721 deaths and migrated.
As many as 28,34,798 samples were tested till date. It may be mentioned here that Maharastra recorded a spike of 2020 cases in kastb24 hours taking the total Covid cases in the state to 44,582.
Meanwhile, sources said that former head of the department of medicine, AIIMS Dr JN Pandey died due to Covid19 on Friday night.
On the other hand, the Union Home Ministry (MHA) has said that States and UTs were advised to check through publicity the possibilities of rumour-mongering regarding shortage of food, essential commodities.
"States were advised to enable relief camps for migrant workers. Special attention needs to be paid to food, shelter and sanitation in the relief camps and food camps. States were also asked to enlist the support of community leaders, volunteers and trained counsellors," said Puniya Salila Srivastava, joint secretary in the Home Ministry.
The MHA has also asked States and UTs to proactively co-ordinate to operate more buses and trains for migrant workers.
"District administration was asked to enlist the help of civil society to alleviate apprehensions of migrants. MHA in its advisory has also asked States and UTs to ensure that migrant workers found walking should be taken to nearest shelter homes, given food and be transported to a place from where they could board homeward bound buses," said Srivastava.
She said that on April 3, MHA had released Rs 11,092 crore to states and UTs under state disaster relief fund to provide shelter and food to migrants.
Meanwhile, in another development, MHA has released a sum of Rs 500 crore to Odisha government for the post Amphan restoration work.
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