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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday stressed upon the need for scaling up sero surveillance surveys and testing for novel coronavirus and said it is important to makes available facilities to all Indians to get tested regularly, speedily and inexpensively at the earliest.
The Prime Minister said this at a review meeting that he chaired here to review the research and vaccine deployment ecosystem against the Covid-19 pandemic, which included testing technologies, contact tracing, drugs and therapeutics.
Lauding the efforts being made by Indian vaccine developers and manufacturers, he said his government is committed to provide required facilitation and support for all such efforts. The meeting was attended among others by Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government K VijayRaghavan, and NITI Aayog Member (Health) Vinod K Paul.
Modi also underscored the need for rigorous scientific testing and validation of traditional medicine treatments and appreciated Ministry of AYUSH efforts to conduct evidence-based research and provide reliable solutions.
On regulatory reform
With regard to regulatory reform, he said it was a dynamic process, and regulator should tap experts in current and emerging domains should proactively, as many new approaches are emerging.
He similarly took stock of comprehensive distribution and delivery mechanism for vaccines including adequate procurement, and technologies for bulk-stockpiling, filling vials for distribution and ensuring effective delivery, are being put together by the Health Ministry.
Covid cases
Meanwhile, Active Covid-19 cases in the country decreased to 8.12 lakh on Thursday with the number of people recovering from the infection surpassing the number of people testing positive to novel coronavirus by close to 14,500 during the last 24 hours.
While over 81,500 people recovered, close to 67,000 people tested positive and 680 people succumbed to Covid-19 since Wednesday morning, according to the Health Ministry.
So far India has reported a little over 73 lakh confirmed Covid-19 cases of which 63.83 lakh people recovered already. The total death toll till date is 1,11,266.
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