‘Mission COVID Suraksha’: Govt mulls mission with Rs 3,000-crore corpus for development Covid-19 vaccine

‘Mission COVID Suraksha’: The government has proposed setting up a ‘Mission COVID Suraksha’ with a corpus of Rs 3,000 crore to accelerate the development and manufacture of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in the country, PTI quoted sources as saying on Monday. Another important aim of the mission will be to make the Covid-19 vaccine easily available to the public at affordable rates, the report added.

In view of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, sources said that the mission will aim to quicken the development of at least six Coronavirus vaccine candidates and ensure that they are licensed and introduced in the market for emergency use at the earliest.

The proposed mission that will focus on end-to-end vaccine development from clinical trial stage to regulatory facilitation to manufacturing, will be piloted by the Department of Biotechnology, the PTI report stated.

There is no official word on it as yet, but senior officials told PTI that it is in “a proposal stage”.
As per the draft proposal, the Mission COVID Suraksha is proposed to have a timeline of 12-18 months and a budget of approximately Rs 3,000 crore.

It will also look at ensuring that sufficient volumes of the vaccine are manufactured to meet India’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

Also, as per the approval of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), the mission will focus on efficient ways to introduce the vaccine in public health systems of the Ministry of Health post to combat further spread of COVID-19 infection.

The draft proposal says that it is imperative that the vaccine development and manufacturing now be taken up “in a mission mode and not in a project mode”, the report added.

The national mission will also work towards the development of the COVID vaccine with a focus on ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ and also fulfill the commitment of serving not just the country but the entire globe, the report summed up.