COVID-19: India To Okay Vaccine For Public By This Month!

New Delhi: India may authorise the emergency use of a vaccine against coronavirus for the public by this month or early next month, according to a member of the national task force on COVID-19 management.

“Hopeful that by the end of this month or early next month, we should get emergency use authorisation from Indian regulatory authorities to start giving the vaccine to the public,” AIIMS Delhi Director Dr Randeep Guleria was quoted as saying by news agency ANI on Thursday.

On vaccine distribution, Guleria said, “Work is going on at war-footing both at the Centre and the state level for vaccine distribution plan in terms of maintaining cold chain, having appropriate storehouses available, developing strategy, training vaccinators and availability of syringes.”

The AIIMS director also said there is good data available that the vaccines are very safe. “The safety and efficacy of vaccine are not compromised at all. Around 70,000-80,000 volunteers have received the vaccine and no significant serious adverse effects were seen. The data shows that in the short term, the vaccine is safe,” he said.

On the vaccine impact during the Chennai trial, Guleria said the case is an incidental finding rather than related to the vaccine candidate.

“As per the information available in the public domain, the Chennai trial case is an incidental finding rather than related to the vaccine. When we vaccinate a large number of people, some of them may have some other disease, which may not be related to the vaccine,” he added.