Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister of India, on the 12th of November announced financial assistance for the research into the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19.
Ms. Sitharaman announced Rs. 900 crores to the Department of Biotechnology for COVID-19 vaccine research in India.
The Rs. 900 crore funding is part of the Rs 2.65 lakh crores Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 stimulus.
During a press conference, Nirmala Sitharaman said the money granted does not cover the actual cost of vaccine and distribution expenses.
The Union Finance Ministry of India said the money for the distribution and cost of COVID-19 vaccine would be announced separately.
Ms. Sitharaman said, “Rs. 900 crores provided for COVID Suraksha Mission for research and development of the Indian COVID vaccine to the Department of Biotechnology.”
Ms. Sitharaman said an additional amount of Rs. 10,200 crores would be provided towards capital and industrial expenditure for domestic defence equipment, industrial incentives and infrastructure and green energy.
India is one of the nations working towards the development of COVID-19 vaccine and conducted 90 % trials of the potential vaccines.
Many private and government pharma companies including the collaboration between the Indian Council Medical Research (ICMR) and Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech International Private limited.
In total, there are 3 vaccines for COVID-19 under trial in India.
Some of them are AstraZeneca-Oxford University’s candidate and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
However, the official report on trials of the vaccines is yet to be made.
Meanwhile, India is the second worst COVID-19 hit nation with 8,685,084 positive cases.
The first worst COVID-19 hit nation is the United States of America with nearly 10 million cases.
Stay tuned for further updates.
