COVID Vaccination Likely To Begin In Jan: Harsh Vardhan

Union Heath Minister Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said that India may finally start rolling out coronavirus vaccines in January.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, the minister said, "I personally feel may be in January in any stage or any week, there can be a time when we can be in a position to give first COVID vaccine shot to people of India".

"India is not less than any country when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine and research. Our first priority has been the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. We do not want any comprise on that. Our regulators are analysing them with seriousness," he said to the news agency.

On Saturday, while addressing the 22nd Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting on COVID-19 he asserted, "Our scientists and health experts have worked on the development of a vaccine by genome sequencing and isolation of the coronavirus and developed an indigenous vaccine. In 6-7 months, we will have the capacity to inoculate about 30 crore people".

Presently, six COVID-19 vaccine candidates in different clinical trial stages in India including Covishield, Covaxin, ZyCoV-D, Sputnik V, NVX-CoV2373 and recombinant protein antigen-based vaccine.

In addition, three COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in the pre-clinical stage of which one of the coronavirus vaccine candidates is in the pre-development stage, the report added.