Thiruvananthapuram, March 12: Former Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr. Balram Bhargava on Tuesday stated India has established itself as a vaccine superpower when it developed Covaxin and the country now produces 60 per cent of the world’s vaccine. During the pandemic period, it was ICMR which tackled Covid-19. The Padma Shri winner said this while delivering a keynote address here at the national institute- BRIC-Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) on the theme ‘Accelerate Action’ as part of RGCB’s Women’s Day celebration.
“Sixty per cent of world’s vaccine is now manufactured in Pune and is supplied to the world. In 2021, we exported vaccines to more than 100 countries which underscore our potential in research and development of vaccines. We have now established ourselves as a vaccine superpower,” said Bhargava. He went on to point out that the vaccine development, right from funding to pre-clinical studies to clinical studies, to lab studies, to physiological studies, has been implemented seamlessly with the help of government machinery. “We have formed a National Task Force, comprising of forty scientists from various research domains who were put to act in need of a crisis,” added Bhargava.
During the Omicron wave, India had the least death rate compared to countries like Russia, UK, US as more than 95 per cent of our population were vaccinated which show how well the government machinery along with the country's health department worked during the crisis phase. Dr. Sharmila Bapat, Director, BRIC-National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, who is a pioneer scientist in cancer stem cell research, called upon women to come forward to do research in science. A lot of schemes are available for women researchers, said Bapat.
RGCB Director Prof. Chandrabhas Narayana highlighted the dominant role played by women faculty and research students in RGCB. “One of our faculty members is currently leading the Indian delegation which is working on cervical cancer eradication. Many of our women students are now doing post-doctoral research in reputed institutions abroad,” said Narayana.