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Giving a quick overview of vaccine development process carried out at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, which has been at the forefront of scientific research on SARS-CoV-2 in the country, Priya Abraham, Director of ICMR-NIV said, “We quickly isolated and gave a strain to Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) by the end of April (2020), after which they developed a whole virion-inactivated vaccine in the month of May and gave us back for review."
"Presently, Phase II and III trials of COVAXIN are going on for children in the age group of 2-18 years. Hopefully, the results are going to be available very soon. The results will be presented to the regulators. So, by September or just after it, we may have COVID-19 vaccines for children", she said.
She also said that studies on booster dose have been going on overseas and at least seven different vaccines have been tried out for booster dose. Now, WHO has put a stop to it till more countries catch up with vaccination. "This is because there is an alarming vaccine gap between high-income and low-income countries. But, in future, recommendations for boosters will definitely come", she mentioned.
