SAFEGUARDING OUR FUTURE

It was good to read that Indian Council for Medical

Research (ICMR), in joint partnership with Bharat Biotech has developed India’s very own COVID-19 vaccine named Covaxin. The vaccine will be tested on 375 people in phase 1 trial and on 750 people in the subsequent phase. In all, it will be tested on more than 1,000 people. The indigenous COVID-19 vaccine had received the nod from DCGI (Drug Controller General of India) for phase one and two trials.

The encouraging news is that the vaccine passed the animal trial phase successfully and has now entered the human trial phase. It is an appreciable approach indeed. Some companies have done human trails but no proper update on the success of vaccine was found. I hope this time it will be successful and will come out as soon as possible. Thanks to all the people who are struggling to find out a proper vaccine for COVID-19. It is also worth mentioning that move has also allowed India a position of security in the fight against COVID-19. While much of humanity seems united at the moment with efforts to bring about a cure being a globally shared effort. But there have been worrying outliers. Most prominent amongst them is the case of President Trump attempting to buy vaccine rights from companies across the world as part of his ‘America first’ approach. While his attempts failed and can be considered an isolated incident, we cannot rule out such powerplays in

later stages when vaccine research has progressed further. Ultimately, aside from giving us peace of mind, our efforts for an indigenous vaccine will give us a headstart in producing

large enough quantities of the vaccine when it is finally approved. Let us hope India continues to lead the way in these grim times.

..... N KALAM, MAHARASHTRA via email