People queue up at a test centre in Southend-on-sea, Britain. (Reuters)

Amid growing anger over a bottleneck in Britain's creaking coronavirus testing system, the government promised on Wednesday to do whatever it takes to boost laboratory capacity that has left people across the land with no way to get a COVID-19 test.

In an attempt to slow one of the highest coronavirus death count in the West, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised in May to create a "world-beating" system to test and trace people exposed to the virus.

But repeated attempts by Reuters reporters to get COVID-19 tests failed, while at a walk-in testing centre at Southend-on-Sea in eastern England hundreds of people were queuing to get a test - some from as early as 0500 GMT.

"Laboratory capacity has been an issue, we are working our way through that," Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told Sky News.

"We'll do whatever it takes to make sure we have that capacity," he told BBC TV. "We know where the pressure points are, we are piloting new walk-in test centres."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday that fixing the system would take weeks. Buckland said health workers, care home workers and school children and their parents should get priority for tests.

The chairman of parliament's health committee, Jeremy Hunt, said testing capacity would have to be significantly boosted so that everybody could have a test.

"If that sounds a long way out - if we roughly quadruple the testing capacity that we're currently planning, not 500,000 a day, but 2 million a day, you would be able to test everyone in the population once a month," Hunt said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Russia Sputnik-V Vaccine: 100 million doses of Sputnik-V vaccine will be sold to India (Representational)

Russia's sovereign wealth fund has agreed to supply 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik-V, to Indian drug company Dr Reddy's Laboratories, the fund said on Wednesday, as Moscow speeds up plans to distribute its shot abroad.

The deal comes after the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) reached agreements with Indian manufacturers to produce 300 million doses of the vaccine in India, which is a major consumer of Russian oil and arms.

Dr Reddy's, one of India's top pharmaceutical companies, will carry out Phase III clinical trials of the vaccine in India, pending regulatory approval, RDIF said in a statement.

Deliveries to India could begin in late 2020, it said, adding this was subject to the completion of trials and the vaccine's registration by regulatory authorities in India.

Russia was the first country to license a novel coronavirus vaccine before large-scale Phase III trials were complete, stirring concern among scientists and doctors about the safety and efficacy of the shot.

The Phase I and II results had shown promise, G V Prasad, co-chairman of Dr Reddy's, was cited in the RDIF statement as saying.

"Sputnik V vaccine could provide a credible option in our fight against COVID-19 in India," he said.

There was no detail about the price of the vaccine but RDIF has said previously it was not aiming at making a profit, just covering costs.

The agreement comes as India's coronavirus cases surged past 5 million on Wednesday, piling pressure on hospitals grappling with unreliable supplies of oxygen that they need to treat tens of thousands of critical patients.

India is only the second country in the world to cross the grim milestone and said this week it is considering granting an emergency authorisation for a vaccine, particularly for the elderly and people in high-risk workplaces.

The RDIF has already reached vaccine supply deals with Kazakhstan, Brazil and Mexico. It has also signed a memorandum with the Saudi Chemical company.

Russia has billed Sputnik-V as the first vaccine against the coronavirus to be registered in the world. Phase III trials, involving at least 40,000 people, were launched in Russia on Aug. 26 but have yet to be completed.

Aurobindo is already developing a vaccine through its wholly-owned US subsidiary Auro Vaccines

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Aurobindo Pharma Limited on Tuesday announced a collaboration to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

As per the release issued by the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), under the signed agreement between CSIR- CCMB and Aurobindo Pharma, Aurobindo will partner with CSIR for the development of several novel COVID-19 vaccines.

"Three CSIR labs namely CCMB Hyderabad, Institute of Medical Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh and Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata are developing vaccine candidates using different technology platforms. Aurobindo will undertake clinical development and commercialization of the vaccines," it said.

Commenting on this partnership, Dr Shekhar C Mande, Director General, CSIR, said that "Joining of hands of premier CSIR labs with industry for the development of vaccines will amplify India's efforts in indigenous vaccine development and also help in preparedness for future pandemics".

Dr. Rakesh Mishra, Director, CSIR-CCMB, while talking about the development strategies for the vaccines said, "Our labs are working on novel proteins for vaccine development that has the potential to address the need for a second-generation vaccine. We are happy to partner with Aurobindo who have proven manufacturing and commercialization capabilities."

Aurobindo Pharma Limited also expresses pride over the collaboration with CSIR for developing vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and said that is already setting up a large-scale facility in Hyderabad for manufacturing the vaccine.

"We are proud to join hands with CSIR for developing vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This collaboration further strengthens our COVID-19 vaccine development efforts. We are already setting up a large-scale facility in Hyderabad for manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine and other viral vaccines," said N. Govindarajan, Managing Director, Aurobindo Pharma Limited.

The release said that apart from this collaboration, Aurobindo is already developing a vaccine for COVID-19 (SARS COV-2) through its wholly-owned US subsidiary Auro Vaccines.

"The SARS COV-2 vaccine candidate is based on the company's proprietary replication-competent, attenuated, recombinant vesicular stomatitis (VSV, VesiculoVax(tm)) vaccine delivery platform," it added.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)