Experts believe that in view of a possible third wave of coronavirus that will peak sometime in October this year, the central and state governments have ramped up the development and manufacturing ecosystem of the COVID vaccine in the country.
The Ministry of Science and Technology on Sunday informed that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing production of COVID vaccines, the government has decided to set up additional laboratories to facilitate rapid testing/pre-release certification. of vaccines.
In an official release issued today, the ministry said that the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India has set up two vaccine testing facilities at its autonomous research institutes National Center for Cytology (NCCS), Pune and the National Institute of Biotechnology (NCCS), Pune. Animal Biotechnology, (NIAB) Hyderabad as Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) for batch testing and quality control of vaccines.
The two new vaccine testing facilities set up as central drug laboratories at DBT-NCCS and DBT-NIAB received funding support from the PM-CARES Fund Trust, the statement said.
The facilities are expected to test about 60 batches of vaccines per month. The facilities have been created to test existing COVID-19 vaccines and other new COVID-19 vaccines as per the demand of the nation.
“This will not only accelerate vaccine manufacturing and supply, but it will also be logistically convenient given that Pune and Hyderabad are the two vaccine manufacturing centres,” the statement said.
At present, the country has a Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) at Kasauli, which is the national control laboratory for testing and pre-release certification of immunobiologicals (vaccines and antisera) for human use in India.
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