India commits $500,000 to International Vaccine Institute for research

India on Monday entered into an agreement with International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in South Korea under which it has committed an annual contribution of $5,00,000 for vaccine research and development.

The MoU was signed between the Indian Council of Medical Research and the IVI.

The partnership will promote further collaborative research activities and training programmes between India and IVI and will ensure IVI achieves its goal of improving health outcomes for the world's poor by improving vaccine access. It will also accelerate capacity-building initiatives that will synergize with and benefit India's vaccine industry, public health and immunization programmes.

IVI is an international non-profit organisation that was founded on the belief that the health of children in developing countries can be dramatically improved by the use of new and improved vaccines.

The MOU was signed by ICMR Director General Soumya Swaminathan, National Health Mission Managing Director Manoj Jhalani for India and IVI Director General Jerome H. Kim.

"We have been working closely with IVI in India for more than a decade now. We are confident that this collaboration will elevate the vaccine Research and Development capacity at IVI as well as Indian labs and further benefit India's vaccine industry," said Swaminathan.

With a long history of scientific collaboration with IVI, India officially became a signatory to the treaty of the Seoul-based international organization in 2012. IVI has 35 signatory countries. With the financial commitment, India joins Sweden and South Korea as financially contributing signatories to IVI.

"India is a vaccine industry powerhouse that supplies 60 per cent of the world's vaccines for vaccine preventable diseases and 60-80 per cent of annual UN vaccine purchases (2012). The signing of the MoU is a continuation of our partnership with India to provide safe, effective and affordable vaccines for people around the world," said Kim.

--IANS

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