ICMR developing portal for information on Covid-19 vaccine in India, abroad

The apex health research body, ICMR, is in the process of developing a vaccine portal which will provide information related to the COVID-19 vaccine development in India and abroad, with majority of the updates in several regional languages in addition to English.

The aim of creating the portal is to provide all information and updates relating to the COVID-19 vaccine development at one platform as all the information in this regard is scattered as of now, Samiran Panda, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, told PTI.

The idea behind making the updates available in regional languages is to make sure every citizen is able to access the information. The portal is likely to be functional by next week, Panda said.

The portal would be made operational in phases. In the first phase, the portal will provide all information related to COVID-19 vaccine in India and abroad.

Over a period of time, information about all other vaccines used to prevent various other ailments will be put on the portal, he said.

In India, three COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including two indigenous ones, are in different phases of clinical trials.

The phase-1 human clinical trials of the two COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed indigenously by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and Zydus Cadila Ltd have been completed and the trials have moved to phase 2, Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava had recently said at a press briefing.

The Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford, has been permitted for conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the candidate in India. It is likely to start the trials next week.

According to Union Health Ministry data updated at 8 am on Saturday, the country saw a record single-day spike of 69,874 infections, taking the country's COVID-19 caseload to 29,75,701, while the death toll due to the disease climbed to 55,794 with 945 fatalities being reported in 24-hour span.