VINIT WAHI / NEW DELHI
Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Dr K Vijay Raghavan has said that around 30 groups in the country from big industry to individual academics, are trying to develop vaccines to fight COVID-19.
“Of them around 20 groups are keeping a good pace. The efforts to develop the vaccine are being made in three ways- indigenously, in collaboration with other companies and by working with the leading companies” he told media persons.
Dr Vijayragahvan said, Indian institutions are engaged in developing four types of vaccines for this virus.
He said, discovery of a new vaccine is very challenging. He added that AICTE and CSIR have embarked on a drug discovery hackathon which is a high-end hackathon where students are trained with information on how to do computational drug discovery. He also said, five important things need to be kept in mind for the prevention of COVID-19 before vaccine arrives. They are Social distancing, hand hygiene, surface cleaning, tracking and testing.
He said, no change in the fundamental properties of the novel Coronavirus has been witnessed till now.
NITI Aayog member, Dr V K Paul said that the fight against novel Coronavirus will be won through vaccine and drugs. He said, country’s science and technology institutions and pharma industry are very strong. He said, about 20 companies are providing diagnostic kits to the countries.