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When will India get Covid-19 vaccine?: Health minister replies

WION Web Team
NEW DELHIUpdated: Nov 23, 2020, 04:13 PM IST
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Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan. Photograph:(ANI)

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"Fewer and fewer people infected are dying. We will have vaccines available very soon and the cases will significantly go down in the next few months," he said.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said that 25-30 crore Indians will be inoculated with coronavirus vaccine by September 2021.

He made these remarks during a television interview. Harsh Vardhan also confirmed that India will get a vaccine in the first three months of 2021.

On Sunday, he also addressed the Boston Center of Excellence (BoCE) for Health and Human Development through video conference and said that the rapidness at which coronavirus vaccines are being developed will have a significant effect on new technologies that will help in faster drug discoveries, lowering the cost and making it more affordable for the poor. The process, which used to take 10 years to produce vaccines, is now done in almost 10 months.

The health minister saluted the millions of frontline workers and elaborated India's strategy to contain the virus.

"It is not the first one and not the last one. But this COVID 19 will soon be a past episode of the 21st century. Our treatment protocol for COVID patients is well defined now," a statement quoted Vardhan as saying.

"Fewer and fewer people infected are dying. We will have vaccines available very soon and the cases will significantly go down in the next few months," he said.

"The rapidness with which we have been able to create vaccines will have a cascading effect on new technologies that will help us all shortly in faster drug discoveries, lowering the cost and making it more affordable for poorer sections of our population," Vardhan said.

"The process that used to take 10 years, now produces vaccines almost in 10 months -- developed, tested, and soon will be available in the market," he added.

The knowledge of drug discovery will also help to develop in several new frontiers, as they may enable to find a cure for many viral ailments that do not respond to antibiotics, Vardhan said, expressing hope that the research might have potential in treating superbugs.

He compared the pandemic to a "transitory state of our civilization". "We have not seen the Spanish Flu, World War I and World War II. But we are living in a phase of a silent war," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)