Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 15

Human trials on two Indian indigenous Covid-19 vaccine candidates began today even as the disease load reached 9,36,181 after a record daily surge of 29,429 cases.

The ICMR-Bharat Biotech Covaxin candidate and Zydus Cadila’s vaccine candidate both have entered phase one and two of the human trials, respectively, at various clinical trial sites, with each enrolling 1,000 volunteers.

ICMR DG Balram Bhargava had yesterday said it was every country’s moral duty to speed up the vaccine development process.

The toll from the disease has reached 24,309 with 582 people dying in 24 hours. Over the same period, 20,572 people recovered, taking the number of the cured to 5,92,031.

The recovery rate is now 63.24 per cent with the actual caseload being 3,19,840.

“The norms and standards for home isolation along with use of oximeters have helped keep a check on asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients without putting pressure on the hospital infrastructure,” said the Health Ministry.

The gap between recovered and active cases has been growing and is now 2,72,191.

The recovered cases exceed active ones by 1.85 times.

Indigenous vaccine for pneumonia

India on Wednesday got its first indigenous pneumonia vaccine with the Drug Controller General of India granting market approval for Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Conjugate Vaccine developed by the Serum Institute of India. TNS