COVID-19 vaccine will be ready in next 3-4 months, says Harsh Vardhan

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan said today that he's confident the vaccine for coronavirus will be ready in the next three or four months. The minister was addressing the FICCI FLO webinar on ''The Shifting Healthcare Paradigm During and Post-Covid'' today.

The health minister pointed out that the administering of the COVID-19 vaccines would be done on the basis of scientific data. He also made it clear that priority would naturally be given to health care workers and corona warriors followed by the elderly and sick.

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The Union Minister said, "I am confident that the COVID-19 vaccine will be ready in the next three-four months. Priority for the vaccine will be designed on the basis of scientific data. Health care workers and corona warriors will naturally be prioritised followed by elderly and disease-prone people. Very detailed planning is underway for vaccine dissemination. An e-vaccine intelligence platform has been created to discuss the blueprint for the same. Tracking and tracing of the vaccine would be neck-deep once it's available for the public. Hopefully, 2021 should be a better year for all of us."

The minister asserted that India has managed despite facing scarcities of PPE kits, ventilators and N-95 masks at the start of the pandemic and is now leading the research on the vaccine globally.

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He said, "Our performance has been excellent on every parameter set by the World Health Organisation, we have the highest recovery rate and the least fatality rate. We have 2,115 laboratories in every nook and corner of the country for COVID tests. Over 20 lakh dedicated COVID beds are in place. It proves that whenever India decides to excel at something, it does."

Pfizer and Moderna are leading the vaccine race with more than 90 per cent efficacy rates. Other vaccine candidates include Russia's Sputnik-V whose Phase 2 and 3 human trials will be conducted in India next week.

The other experimental vaccines include AstraZeneca and Oxford University's COVISHIELD vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and India's indigenous vaccine COVAXIN developed by Bharat Biotech.