Current pace of COVID vaccination drive is not satisfactory: CCMB Director

Director of the CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Dr Rakesh Mishra, who was speaking at the Cardiology society of Telangana chapter on Saturday, stated all the vaccines are safe and added it is necessary to take the two shots of the vaccine as prescribed by the health ministry.

Hyderabad: Director of the CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Dr Rakesh Mishra, asserted that the pace at which the Centre has been vaccinating the citizens is not up to the mark and added it would take half a decade to vaccinate all the citizens.

Mishra, who was speaking at the Cardiology society of Telangana chapter on Saturday, stated all the vaccines are safe and added it is necessary to take the two shots of the vaccine as prescribed by the health ministry.

"As the Indian drug regulator gave its nod to the two indigenous COVID-19 vaccines to administer in case of emergency, but it is not necessary that every individual would react to the vaccine", said Mishra. Further, he added that the vaccine would work only on 80 percent of people who get the vaccine.

Reacting to the latest trend of coronavirus spike in India, he said that people laxity resulted in the spike of deadly virus cases.

"Vaccine is not the end of the deadly virus. People should take the vaccine and also have to follow the protocols advised by the health ministry", said the Director of the CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

As many as 24,882 new COVID-19 cases and 19,957 recoveries were reported in India in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Saturday.

With the addition of fresh infections, the total number positive cases in the country reached 1,13,33,728, including 2,02,022 active cases and 1,09,73,260 recoveries.

Maharashtra remains one of the worst affected states in the country with 15,817 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. The total number of active cases stands at 1,10,485 while the death toll stands at 52,723.