New Delhi: Stating that some of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates may get a license in the next few weeks, with preparatory activities for the roll-out of the vaccine being carried out simultaneously by the Central government in collaboration with States and UTs, the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday at a press conference said that getting vaccinated is a voluntary exercise and that vaccination cannot just be a State’s or the Centre’s responsibility, “it has to be people’s participation”.
Three COVID-19 vaccine candidates have currently applied for emergency use authorisation, according to the Health Ministry. Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary-Health, speaking at the conference, cautioned that COVID-19 appropriate behaviour should not see any relaxation with several countries across the world now witnessing another surge of the virus.
“While we cannot predict when the three vaccine candidates currently with the Drugs Controllers General of India (DCGI) seeking emergency use authorisation will be cleared as they have to go through the due clearance process, India’s regulatory framework has a specific provision for the grant of emergency use authorisation under the New Drugs and Clinical Trial Rule, 2019. This provides that under specific special situations mentioned in the Rule, relaxation, abbreviation, omission, or deferment of data, including local clinical trial data, may be considered for approval. Similarly, other countries also have laws. The timeline for issuing licence is under the national regulator’s domain,” said Mr. Bhushan.
He added that once a green signal was obtained from scientists, the Centre “will launch massive production of the vaccine”.
“The Central government has made elaborate preparations and drawn an outline to ramp up production of vaccines to make it available to each and every person in the shortest possible time. We will be running parallel vaccination programmes for several priority groups,” said Mr. Bhushan.
