COVID-19 cases in the country have not yet hit their peak or even plateaued, asserted All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Randeep Guleria.
“These are trying times. It has tested the resilience of the nation. We have not reached the peak or started plateauing as far as cases are concerned,” Guleria said.
The remarks come at a time when COVID-19 infections are racing ahead with the country adding at least 1,00,000 new cases every two days.
It has logged more than 23 lakh cases and over 46,000 deaths so far since the first case on January 30.
Shedding light on the vaccine development, Guleria said that India has an advantage because it makes almost 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines.
“We have the capacity to manufacture a large number of vaccines and that is the commitment that the government and manufacturers have given- that we will be able to upscale our manufacturing capacity not only for our own country but for the entire world,” Guleria added.
Three vaccine candidates are in different stages of human clinical trials in India- one developed by University of Oxford by Pune’s Serum Institute of India, the other inactivated virus vaccine by Bharat biotech and the third DNA vaccine by Zydus Cadila.
