Impossible to have vaccine by August 15, say experts

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, July 3

Medical experts feel that the August 15 deadline fixed for the launch of the first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is impracticable as human trials will take at least three to six months.

“The urgency to develop a Covid vaccine cannot be overemphasised in the circumstances prevailing across the globe, and we also wish that it is made at the earliest. Nonetheless, the presumption that it will be launched in a month or two seems to be more of wishful thinking,” says Prof (Dr) Dhruva Chaudhry, Head of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at PGIMS, Rohtak.

Dr VK Katyal, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, also maintains that the human trials for the development of Covid vaccine would take at least three months.