The Indian government has established a national expert group that will oversee all issues concerning candidate vaccines against the coronavirus, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Anurag Srivastava, said on Thursday
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2020) The Indian government has established a national expert group that will oversee all issues concerning candidate vaccines against the coronavirus, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Anurag Srivastava, said on Thursday.
"The government has set up a national expert group on vaccine administration for COVID-19. The purpose of the group is to keep India at the forefront of any ongoing effort worldwide to innovate, prepare, produce and launch candidate vaccines to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, for India and for the world," Srivastava said during a press conference.
The spokesman added that the ministry would connect Indian companies that are interested in any candidate vaccines with each other and facilitate the process of delivering relevant testing data to state regulatory agencies.
According to Srivastava, regulatory agencies have the authority to decide on trials for candidate vaccines before approving their distribution in India.
Earlier in August, Russia registered the world's first COVID-19 vaccine, named Sputnik V and developed by the Gamaleya Institute. The phase 3 trial of the vaccine, involving around 2,000 people, is currently underway. The Russian Direct Investment Fund has said that Moscow was working with several Indian companies on the production of Sputnik V and mentioned that phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine could be held in India, among other countries.
