Russian Corona vaccine - When will the vaccine come to India? What is the status of Covaxin? | Sputnik V

When Russia announced the discovery of a vaccine for the Corona virus disease last Tuesday, countries like India, France volunteered to buy the vaccine.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh meeting Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov

          India is among the 20 countries that have shown interest in obtaining 'Sputnik V' vaccine for Covid-19 in the world. It is only natural that both countries should be interested in getting the vaccine as they are highly affected by the Corona epidemic. 

          It is also rumored that in terms of selling the vaccine, preference will be given to India over other countries because India is having good relationship with Russia and despite its a Corona outbreak time, recently Defense Minister Rajnath Singh visited Russia. According to media reports, Russia is ready to sell the Corona vaccine to India, But both the countries have not officially commented on this. 

          Questions also have been raised as to whether India is the only country interested in buying the vaccine because of the unwillingness of the World Health Organization, the United States and the United Kingdom to trust the Russian vaccine. 

INDIA'S STEPS OVER RUSSIAN CORONA VACCINE

          Indian Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said that a panel of experts has been set up to decide whether to buy the drug after Russia announced last Tuesday that it had discovered the vaccine. Not only this but an emergency meeting was convened yesterday which was chaired by Dr V K Paul Member of NITI AAYOG. The meeting discussed mainly things like,

1. When will the vaccine be manufactured in India?
2. How is it prepared?
3. When will it be distributed to the people?
4. Whether to buy vaccines from Russia or not?

#NITIAayog Member Dr VK Paul chaired a meeting with @PrinSciAdvGoI on the R&D requirement for developing the vaccine for #COVID19.

Representatives from @DBTIndia, @IndiaDST, @ICMRDELHI, @IGIBSocial & @MdNcd discussed priority areas for working together. #covidindia pic.twitter.com/fgrUHeSBdp

— NITI Aayog (@NITIAayog) March 18, 2020

COVAXIN | OXFORD VACCINE | SPUTNIK V

            Ahead of the meeting, AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria said that India should confirm certain things before purchasing Corona vaccine from Russia. Like,

• What do their experimental data suggest?
• How many people were vaccinated?
• What are the results?
• Is the vaccine effective?
• Is this drug safe or not?

In an interview with private television, he said India should buy the vaccine from Russia only after confirming security measures. Also we must not forget that trials on locally made vaccines are taking place in India. The second and third trials of COVAXIN, manufactured by BHARAT Biotech are underway and the SERUM Institute of India has entered into an agreement with the UK-based OXFORD vaccine, which has reached the third phase of testing. 

So far, Human clinical trials of BBV152 Vaccine or Covaxin has shown no side effects 

In the end, India has the potential to produce a large number of vaccines. So it is a bitter truth that experts do not like India's attempt to buy vaccines from Russia