Vaccine emerges as frontrunner to combat novel coronavirus: ICMR

ICMR's Chief Scientist Dr Raman Gangakhedkar said that at least 70 groups of scientists across the world have been working on the development of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus and five groups have come into human trial phase.

New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Sunday said that vaccines developed or observed for the novel coronavirus by five groups of scientists are in the process of coming into the human trial phase after passing trials on animals.

Speaking at a daily media briefing here, ICMR's Chief Scientist Dr Raman Gangakhedkar said that at least 70 groups of scientists across the world have been working on the development of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus and five groups have come into human trial phase.

"At least five out of 70 groups of scientists who are researching the vaccine of novel coronavirus are in the process of coming to the human trial stage. One of the groups is researching on ChAdOX1 vaccine, and not much side effect of the vaccine was observed on the animals.

"There is a candidate vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 called ChAdOx1 that is one of the front runners in the race to find a vaccine for novel coronavirus," he said.

"We are also hopeful and wish that it works....everyone will get benefits if a vaccine is developed," Gangakhedkar added.