Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan on Monday launched an online portal for all information related to the development of a potential vaccine against Covid-19 in the country. The “Vaccine Portal” is available on the Indian Council of Medical Research website.
The health minister also launched the “National Clinical Registry”, which he said will be a portal for collecting “quality real-time clinical data” of coronavirus patients.
“The portal provides useful and important information related to vaccine development, ongoing clinical trials and progress made in this area locally and globally at regular intervals,” Vardhan was quoted as saying in a statement. “Today, in the times of COVID, vaccine development is watched very closely. Thus, it becomes important to showcase the status of vaccine development in the country.”
Vardhan added that everyone will be able to go the online to that portal and look up all “contemporary research-development and clinical trials related information about such vaccinations,” according to ANI. “It will also provide information about other vaccinations provided in the country.”
The health minister again expressed confidence that India will have a vaccine by early 2021. “Research to develop a vaccine is being done expeditiously,” Vardhan said. “There are at least three viable such vaccine candidates that are in the phase of clinical trials right now in the country. We’re hopeful that within the first quarter of 2021, it will be available.”
Vardhan had told the Parliament on September 17 too that the government expected a vaccine against the coronavirus to be available in India by the beginning of the next year. “India is making effective efforts to develop a vaccine like the rest of the world,” Vardhan had said while addressing the Rajya Sabha. “Three vaccine candidates are in phase one, two and three of clinical trials.”
The launch of the online portals came as India crossed 60 lakh cases. India’s coronavirus count on Monday stood at 60,74,702, while toll reached 95,542. More than 50 lakh people in India have recovered from the infection so far.
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