Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday took a review meeting of the research and vaccine deployment ecosystem against the COVID-19 pandemic including testing technologies, contact tracing, drugs and therapeutics in the presence of Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

The Prime Minister took stock of Health Ministry's comprehensive distribution and delivery mechanism for vaccines. This includes mechanisms for adequate procurement, and technologies for bulk-stockpiling, filling vials for distribution and ensuring effective delivery and directed that both sero-surveys and testing must be scaled up.

He said that the facility to get tested regularly, speedily and inexpensively must be available to all at the earliest.

The Prime Minister also underscored the need for continuous and rigorous scientific testing and validation of traditional medicine treatments.

Prime Minister Modi appreciated the efforts made by Indian vaccine developers and manufacturers to rise to the COVID-19 challenge, and committed to continue government facilitation and support for all such efforts, and stated that regulatory reform was a dynamic process, and experts in every current and emerging domain should be used by the regulator proactively, as many new approaches have emerged.

The Union Health Ministry on Thursday said the country's doubling time of COVID-19 cases has sharply increased to 70.4 days from 25.5 days in mid-August, which is nearly thrice the time being taken earlier.

A graph along with the Ministry's tweet showed India's doubling rate was 27.7 days on August 18; 32 on August 30; 35.6 on September 17; 51.4 on October 2; and 70.4 on October 14.

Out of the total cases, 8,12,390 are currently active, 63,83,441 have been discharged, while 1,11,266 lost the battle against the pandemic.

While the recovery rate stands at 87.36 per cent, the fatality rate is 1.52 per cent, the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.
(IANS)