Bharat Biotech, Zydus Cadila complete phase I

Only 0.27% of total active cases on ventilators: Health ministry

Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadilla have finished the phase 1 in three weeks and moved to second phase Covid vaccine trials in 11 sites, Balram Bhargava, director general, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said on Tuesday.

Serum Institute will begin the second phase trials of Oxford University’s Astra Zeneca vaccine within a week, he said.

Bhargava said it was not just the development of vaccine but the prioritisation and distribution such as logistics, cold chain, stockpiling, and training of people to administer the vaccine that is also important. The health ministry said only 0.27 per cent of the total active cases in the country were on ventilators, the health ministry said, highlighting how India had become self-sufficient in manufacturing ventilators with the share of domestic production in volume terms reaching 96 per cent.

The ministry said India was ramping up its testing capacity having conducted more than 200 million tests so far and 600,000 tests in a single day, the highest so far. Around 25-30 per cent of the tests being conducted are through rapid antigen while the remaining are the RT-PCR test, considered the gold standard in Covid testing.

“We have adopted a policy of intelligent and calibrated testing depending on which area needs more testing...we are trying to reach 10 lakh tests per day,” said Bhargava.

ICMR has also asked states to analyse their data to have a “data-driven response” to the pandemic. “There is enough data now...states need to know the epidemic,” he said.

While the fatality rate is now at 2.1 per cent, the lowest since the lockdown, the ministry rejected the allegations that certain states were underreporting deaths. It said the states with the most number of Covid fatalities were among states with much higher level of registration and medical certification of death.