The Centre on Sunday announced a new high-level task force for vaccine and drug testing for Covid-19 as the total death toll from the pandemic increased to 519 and the total confirmed cases reached 16,116.
The main objective of the task force is to speed up national and international efforts towards vaccine development to treat Covid-19, Lav Aggarwal, joint secretary, health ministry, told reporters here.
The task force will be co-chaired by V K Paul, member, NITI Aayog and K Vijayraghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government and include representatives of Ayush ministry, ICMR, Department of Biotechnology, Drug Controller General of India among others.
The Department of Biotechnology would also act as a nodal agency “to identify the pathway for vaccine development, monitor the progress of efforts at both national and international level in this area and provide government facilitation where needed.
The task force would also form clinical cohorts which would focus on long term follow up of the disease and its management.
The government will collect bio-specimen which will form the basis for further drug and vaccine trials.