ICMR developing portal for info on COVID-19 vaccine in India & abroad

apex health research body, ICMR, is in process of developing a vaccine portal which will provide information related to COVID-19 vaccine development in India and abro, with majority of updates in several regional langus in dition to English.

aim of creating portal is to provide all information and updates relating to COVID-19 vaccine development at one platform as all information in this regard is scattered as of w, Samiran Panda, He of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, told PTI.

idea behind making updates available in regional langus is to make sure every citizen is able to access information. portal is likely to be functional by next week, Panda said.

portal would be me operational in phases. In first phase, portal will provide all information related to COVID-19 vaccine in India and abro.

Over a period of time, information about all or vaccines used to prevent various or ailments will be put on portal, he said.

In India, three COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including two indigeus ones, are in different phases of clinical trials.

phase-1 human clinical trials of two COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed indigeusly by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and Zydus Cila Ltd have been completed and trials have moved to phase 2, Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava h recently said at a press briefing.

Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by University of Oxford, has been permitted for conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of candidate in India. It is likely to start trials next week.

According to Union Health Ministry data updated at 8 am on Saturday, country saw a record single-day spike of  69,874  infections, taking country's COVID-19 caselo to 29,75,701, while death toll due to disease climbed to 55,794 with 945 fatalities being reported in 24-hour span.

(Photo Credit: AP)