Vaccine portal launched in India

On September 28, 2020, the Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan launched a vaccine portal for COVID-19. The portal aims to create awareness among masses.

Highlights

• The portal will provide vaccine related information. This will include efforts made in India towards vaccine development against COVID-19.
• Alongside, the Minister also launched a history timeline of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) displaying key milestones and programme interventions. The timeline depicted 108 year journey of the council. Also, a history book was launched on the 100-year journey of ICMR.
• The Minster also launched a data collection programme called “Mapping of nutrition and health status”. The programme will collect data on dietary intake through crowd sourcing approach.
• A report titled “What India Eats” was also released. The report provided information about dietary patterns in India. This is important for the policy makers to understand the distribution of diet among various population.
• The All India Institute of Medical Sciences launched a National Clinical Registry for COVID-19. It will collect data and will inform research and clinical experts and also those formulating guidelines and policy.
• ICMR-NIN portal was launched. It is the first of its kind that was developed to collect data about COVID-19. Earlier, similar portal was used to provide E-learning modules. The modules focused on food fortification, anaemia, nutrition, yoga, etc.

About the Portal

The portal will be available in the site of ICMR. Initially, the portal is to be used to provide information about COVID-19 vaccines. Slowly, it is to be extended to all the other vaccines. Three vaccines are under clinical trial in India. They are as follows

• COVAXIN developed by Bharat Biotech International Limited which is at second phase of human trial
• COVISHIELD developed by Oxford University and manufactured by Serum Institute of India is under phase III of clinical trial
• Zydus Cadila developed vaccine is under the process of receiving approval to conduct third phase of clinical trials.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2020