The government has formed a high level task force for vaccine and drug testing for Covid-19 on Sunday as the total death toll from the pandemic increased to 507 and the total cases reached 15,712.
The main objective of the task force is to speed up national and international efforts towards vaccine development to treat Covid, Lav Aggarwal, joint secretary, health ministry said in the daily briefing.
The task force headed by member, NITI Aayog and principal scientific advisor to the Prime Minister will also include representatives of Ayush ministry, ICMR, department of biotechnology, drug controller general of India among others.
Besides, the department of biotechnology would also act as a nodal agency “to identify the pathway for vaccine development, ,monitor 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.
Government will collect bio-specimen which will form the basis for further drug and vaccine trials.
“This is different from sample testing protocol,” Aggarwal added.
The government will take a decision on the relaxations that would be given on lockdown restrictions in non-containment areas on April 20.
As on Sunday, there are 54 districts where no new case has been reported in the last 14 days.