NEW DELHI: India on Sunday set up a task force to oversee and expedite the efforts being made to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus on a day the highly contagious pandemic claimed lives of 507 people in the country and over 1.63 lakh people across the globe in absence of any specific remedy for it.
“A high-level task force has been formed to work on the frontiers of science related to drug testing and vaccines,” a senior official of the Union health ministry Luv Agrawal told reporters here at a press conference.
The task force will expedite coordination of work done by all the ministries towards development of a vaccine for the deadly virus.
“This will further enable to speed up the research work carried out through international efforts by academia and research institutions,” the official said.
The efforts of the department of biotechnology, which is the nodal agency for vaccine development, will remain focussed towards identifying pathways for vaccine development, he added.
The task force is co-chaired by K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a Member of the Union government’s think tank, Niti Aayog.
Officials from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), departments of science and technology, biotechnology, directorate general of health services (DGHS), drug controller general of India (DCGI), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Defence Research and Development Organiisation (DRDO) are its members.
“Through the task force, the government will further facilitate, keep track and monitor the progress of national and international efforts in vaccine development. The Task Force will focus on clinical cohorts, which will focus on long-term follow up of people for having better understanding of disease and management,” the health ministry official said.
