Summary:
New Delhi: A vaccine for the coronavirus will likely be ready by early 2021 but rolling it out safely across India`s 1.3 billion people will be the country`s biggest challenge in fighting its surging epidemic, a leading vaccine scientist told Bloomberg.
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New Delhi: A vaccine for the coronavirus will likely be ready by early 2021 but rolling it out safely across India`s 1.3 billion people will be the country`s biggest challenge in fighting its surging epidemic, a leading vaccine scientist told Bloomberg.
The country, which is host to some of the front-runner vaccine clinical trials, currently has no local infrastructure in place to go beyond immunising babies and pregnant women, said Gagandeep Kang, professor of microbiology at the Vellore-based Christian Medical College and a member of the WHO`s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.
The timing of the vaccine is a contentious subject around the world.
In the US, President Donald Trump has contradicted a top administration health expert by saying a vaccine would be available by October.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s government had promised an indigenous vaccine as early as mid-August, a claim the government and its top medical research body has since walked back.
For a country of its size, and with a virus curve that shows no sign of flattening, a safe and quick vaccine is a top priority for the PM Modi`s administration.
The country`s broken health-care system, already struggling to deliver adequate care before the outbreak, cannot cope with the strain of a prolonged pandemic.
A strict lockdown implemented in late March led to the biggest contraction among major economies with gross domestic product shrinking 23.9% in the three months to June from a year earlier.