H1NI vaccine to be ready by March-April: Azad

With swine flu claiming over 470 lives in the country till October-end, the Centre today said the much-awaited Influenza A-H1N1 vaccine to combat the viral disease would be ready by March-April next year.

"Private pharmaceutical companies are in the advanced stage of developing the vaccine and it will be ready by March or April next year," Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said here.

He was addressing the 30th convocation of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research which was attended among others by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Azad said a new department of Health Research had been created in his Ministry which was engaged in promoting and developing some new vaccines.

The Minister said the department had been told to develop low cost testing kits for H1N1 virus and diabetes.

"The road ahead is long and arduous, but together we can achieve the impossible," he said.

As many as 472 people had succumbed to the swine flu in India till October-end with the number of those contracting the infection touching 13,861, according to the Union Health Ministry.