Committee on COVID-19 vaccine administration to meet today; India records over 22 lakh cases

New Delhi: The Expert Committee on vaccine administration under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog member Dr VK Paul will meet on Wednesday to consider the logistics and ethical aspects of procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccine, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Committee will engage with all the stakeholders including state governments and vaccine manufacturers. “The Expert Committee on Vaccine Administration under the chairmanship of Dr VK Paul, NITI Aayog will meet on 12 August to consider logistics and ethical aspects of procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccine,” the Ministry tweeted. “The Committee will engage with all the stakeholders including State governments and vaccine manufacturers,” it said in another tweet. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), three Indian COVID-19 vaccines are in different phases of clinical testing at present. “At the present moment, we have three Indian vaccines that are in different phases of clinical testing. The two vaccines - Bharat Biotech vaccine and DNA vaccine of Zydus Cadila have completed phase 1 and will begin phase 2 while third is Oxford vaccine,” said top ICMR scientist Professor Balram Bhargava. “Oxford vaccine, being manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) got approval for phase 2 and 3 clinical trials, which are starting within a week at 17 sites,” he added. India’s COVID-19 cases has crossed 22 lakh including 6,34,945 active cases, 15,35,744 cured/discharged/migrated while the toll reached 44,386. However, the health ministry has pointed out that the infection is now concentrated in 10 states that contribute more than 80 percent of the new cases.