Agencies

Covid-19, or SARS CoV-2, caused by coronavirus has thrown an unprecedented public health challenge before the world. With cases and deaths increasing by the day and no immediate solution in sight, people are eagerly looking forward to the much talked about �herd immunity�, which public health experts believe can save people from infection.

�Herd immunity� can be obtained in two ways: with a large number of population getting infected, which is fraught with the risk of a huge number of deaths, or by vaccination of people against the virus.

Though over a hundred vaccine candidates are in the field, ever since Serum Institute of India, the world�s largest vaccine manufacturer, has announced that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford will hit the Indian markets by October this year, millions of people across the country are looking forward to this vaccine.

At the beginning of June, Serum Institute of India (SII) had reached a licensing agreement to supply 1 billion doses of the Oxford University vaccine candidate against Covid-19 to middle and low-income countries, including India.

To begin with, by this year end both companies had committed to provide 400 million doses.

Based on the ongoing clinical trials, we are expecting the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to be available towards the end of this year.

Usually it takes about 4-5 years to develop a vaccine. Currently there are more than 100 vaccine candidates at different stages of trials. Each will take their own time, and as I said, we are hoping that the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine will be available towards the end of the year.