Commendable that India has been able to keep COVID-19 cases very low compared to other nations: WHO's chief scientist

World Health Organisation's Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Monday commended India for keeping the coronavirus cases and deaths very low compared to other countries and said it will play an important role in the development of a vaccine for COVID-19.

She said the whole world has to be prepared for the ongoing transmission of infection for "many many months and for perhaps years to come".

Swaminathan said it is not just enough to develop and test the vaccine, but it is also crucial to manufacture it, scale-up procurement and get health systems to vaccinate populations.

Speaking on the National Technology Day, Swaminathan said, "I would like to commend and congratulate the minister and colleagues for having contained so far the COVID pandemic in India and having kept both the number of cases and the number of deaths very low compared to other countries."