Dr Fauci makes big statement on India's role in Covid vaccine search; speaks at ICMR event

Dr. Anthony S Fauci, top infectious disease specialist of United States, on Thursday asserted that India would play an important role in supplying world with a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Fauci who is also director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said NIAID and India’s Department of Biotechlogy have had a partnership of more than 30 years through Indo-US Vaccine Action Plan (VAP), and it is playing a role in monitoring India’s research and development (R&D) efforts in vaccine development.

Dr. Fauci was speaking at an online symposium organised by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) which was attended by several globally acclaimed epidemiologists and vaccilogists.

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Private sector has a very important role to play

During Web conference, Dr. Fauci said India’s private sector has a very important role to play as world’s leading manufacturer of vaccines. As effective Covid-19 vaccines emerge from  research efforts  manufacturing capability is going to be very, very important, he added.  Dr. Fauci also said US and or National Institutes of Health will continue to work with Indian counterparts and colleagues in Covid-19 vaccine development.

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According to Dr. Fauci re are three main aspects that would reduce delay between trials and manufacture of vaccines. y are regulatory standards and review,  financing of advanced vaccine production and harmonised data monitoring to foster comparability.

He also put forth his opinion on one of ongoing debates in medical community, he said he was against human challenge trials, in which participants are deliberately exposed to virus. He said  high incidence of COVID-19 makes such risks unnecessary and  lack of highly effective rapies makes it unethical. However, some of or panelists at  symposium disagreed.

Prof Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is part of team of researchers partnered with India’s Serum Institute to develop a vaccine candidate informed rapies such as remedesivir and convalescent plasma should allow researchers to consider both human challenge and randomised control trials for faster and less expensive pathways, considering unpredictability of coronavirus spread. In view of rising 'vaccine nationalism, participants also discussed how to equitably distribute future vaccine.

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COVID-19 cases in India

As of Friday, India's total COVID cases stand at 16,38,871 of which 5,45,318 are active while 10,57,806 have recovered. 35,747 people have died so far. lockdown has been extended to August 31 under 'Unlock 3' by Ministry of Hime Affairs.

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