Hindustan Times (Gurugram)

Vaccine candidates from India progressin­g well, says ICMR

Phase II/III trials of Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate to start at 17 sites within a week

- Rhythma Kaul letters@hindustant­imes.com

NEW DELHI: India’s Covid-19 vaccine candidates are progressin­g well, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Balram Bhargava said on Tuesday.

He added phase II/III clinical trials for the recombinan­t Oxford University vaccine candidate will begin within a week at 17 sites across India. Serum Institute of India, which is the local manufactur­er of the vaccine, will conduct the trials.

“Inactivate­d virus vaccine candidate by Bharat Biotech and the DNA vaccine by Zydus Cadila have completed phase I studies in 11 sites and started phase II trials. Phase I and II trials are for safety studies and very early efficacy studies,” said Bhargava.

At least 141 vaccine candidates are being studied globally, of which 26 are in different phases of clinical trials.

Bhargava said India is making all efforts to ensure a vaccine is available whenever it is ready. He added it includes prioritisi­ng and fair distributi­on, maintainin­g the cold chain, stockpilin­g and training of people to administer vaccines.

“Availabili­ty of the vaccine is the key but what is more important in managing the disease is sustained behavioura­l change that includes wearing of masks, hand hygiene, and observing social distancing.”

Dr GC Khilnani, a former pulmonolog­y department head at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said the vaccine will be the ultimate solution. “Many vaccine candidates are showing promise in initial trials, but whichever makes it should reach masses in time.”

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan separately said India’s current case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.10% has been the lowest since the first phase of the lockdown (around 3.3%) that was imposed to check the Covid-19 spread from March 25.

“There has been a progressiv­e decline in country’s CFR and it is now the lowest since lockdown began and also one of the lowest globally. The mortality analysis that we have done is broadly in line with the global scenario, although percentage­s may differ,” said Bhushan.

The latest mortality analysis shows 68% of the Covid-19 deaths in the country are among men and 32% among women. Most deaths—50%—are in the age group of 60 and above, followed by 37% among people between 45 and 60. About 11% of people, who succumbed to the disease, were between 26 and 44.

Jugal Kishore, who heads the community medicine department at Safdarjung Hospital, said elderly and those with co-morbiditie­s are vulnerable and need special focus. “All our data points to that. It is important for the country to achieve the target of CFR below 1%.”

INCREASED TESTING Bhargava said they have been doing intelligen­t and calibrated testing.

He added remote areas with the inadequate testing facilities, or those districts with the high caseload, are being given priority.

“We set up labs in areas where there were no labs or very few labs and deployed high throughput testing machines in special economic zones, where the public movement was higher and larger internatio­nal airports. Our target is to go up to one million tests a day.”

He added it is important for states to analyse the data well to deploy resources accordingl­y.”

VENTILATOR INDUSTRY Even though less than 1% of the country’s Covid-19 patients are on ventilator support at any given time, India has managed to establish full self-reliant ventilator manufactur­ing facilities and is even ready to export the machines.

India has commission­ed about 60,000 ventilator­s to some 20 odd domestic manufactur­ers.

“There were just a few manufactur­ers of ventilator­s in India some four months ago and even those making them in India relied heavily on imported parts. When the outbreak started, many of those countries imposed restrictio­ns. There was no option but to encourage domestic manufactur­ers to get into the fray, and we have managed it with great success,” said Bhushan.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India