The way ahead for COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution in India

COVID-19 has shown to the world how volatile and vulnerable it is to catastrophes. The factors that contributed to this exponential rise in COVID-19 numbers in India were the absence of a reliable diagnosis system, an inadequate number of frontline health workers, lack of infrastructure in hospitals for containment of patients, a lackadaisical attitude by many towards adhering to lockdown guidelines, among others.

As the infection has most of its symptoms similar to a common cold, a cough or fever was overlooked, and the time taken by tests such as the RAT and the RT-PCR to deliver results made it important to have a single definitive diagnostic test for identification of COVID-19.

The aim of all health organisations worldwide is not just to treat the infection but eradicate it, and the only way being the development and administration of an effective vaccine. So, while the world is gearing up to combat the third wave of this pandemic, various organisations are invested in manufacturing a vaccine against this virus. Some are close to being administered. With the advent of vaccine development technologies such as an attenuated live virus, whole inactivated virus, protein subunit, recombinant, peptides, R/NR vector, and nucleic acid types, a concentrated effort is being put in by different countries.

The full article was originally published on Moneycontrol.