Dr R Gangakhedkar, head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on Tuesday said that it has never happened before in the case of any other disease when science had exhibited such progress. During a Covid-19 press briefing by Union Health Ministry, Gangakhedkar said that novel coronavirus is a “new disease” and in just three 3 months, science has shown progress and developed tests for the disease.
Trials are under progress for the formulation of coronavirus vaccine, he said.
“It is a new disease, in the last 3 and half months science has progressed and developed PCR tests, 5 vaccines have gone into human trial phase out of 70 vaccine candidates. It has never happened before in case of any other disease,” Gangakhedkar said.
{{/usCountry}}“It is a new disease, in the last 3 and half months science has progressed and developed PCR tests, 5 vaccines have gone into human trial phase out of 70 vaccine candidates. It has never happened before in case of any other disease,” Gangakhedkar said.
{{/usCountry}}Gangakhedkar said that state governments have been advised not to use rapid testing kits for two days.
“A lot of variations, kits will be tested and validated by on-ground teams and we will give advisory in the next 2 days,” he added.
The top ICMR scientist said that over 4 lakh coronavirus samples have been tested so far.
“4,49,810 samples have been tested so far. 35,852 samples were tested yesterday, of which 29,776 samples were tested in 201 Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) network labs and remaining 6,076 samples were tested in 86 private labs, Gangakhedkar stated.
During the press briefing, Lav Agrawal, joint secretary, health ministry, said that while the focus remains on tackling the coronavirus situation, “all other services need to be provided, be it for dialysis, HIV/cancer treatments etc. At the same time, required infection management prevention should be in place”.
As per the updated data by the health ministry on Tuesday evening, the number of coronavirus cases in the country near 19,000. There are 18,985 cases of coronavirus cases in the country which includes 15,122 active cases, 3259 patients who have cured or discharged and 603 Covid-19 fatalities.