Hopeful that Indian Covid vaccines will get use authorisation by end of this month or early January: AIIMS Director

In news that can make you a bit more hopeful of things improving in some time, Director of the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Dr Randeep Guleria has said that he is hopeful of that by the end of this month or early next month, India will get emergency use authorisation for a coronavirus vaccine.

In an interview with a news agency, Dr Guleria, who is also a member of the national task force on Covid-19 management said,”In India, we now have a vaccine which is in the final phase of the trial. Both the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech vaccines are in their phase three trials. So we are very hopeful that by the end of this month or early next month, we should get the emergency use authorisation from the Indian regulatory authorities to start giving the vaccine to the public.”

While stressing on Indian vaccines and their authorization, Dr Guleria said that “this is great news that one vaccine has finally being floored and within the span of one year. This is a big boost to all the vaccine manufacturers. Now there are good chances of the vaccine being available.”

The AIIMS director remarked that there is good data available that the vaccines are safe. “70,000-80,000 volunteers were tested with the Covid-19 vaccine and apart from one case in Chennai, no significant adverse effects were seen on the volunteers. The data showed that in the short term, the vaccine is safe,” he said.

On the distribution of vaccine, Dr Guleria said “work is going on at war-footing both at the centre and the state level for vaccine distribution plan in terms of maintaining the cold chain, having appropriate storehouses available, developing strategy, training vaccinators and availability of syringes.”

Dr Guleria said that in the beginning as vaccines won’t be available in sufficient doses to give everyone, the Centre is working on adopting strategies to prioritise the list.
“We need a priority list to see that we vaccinate those who have high chances of dying due to Covid-19. Elderly, people with comorbidities and front line workers should be vaccinated first.”