India maintained a cautious approach to the announcement of Russian vaccine Sputnik V , saying the “National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 ” would evaluate all candidates first and then explore partnerships for Indian companies.
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“The purpose of the [expert] group is to keep India in the forefront of any ongoing effort worldwide to innovate, prepare, produce and launch candidate vaccines to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, for India and for the world”, said Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava in response to a question from The Hindu. He added that the MEA would support the group in order to connect the vaccine manufacturers to Indian companies interested.
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Earlier this week, sources in the MEA said the Indian Embassy was in touch with Russian company RDIF for “safety and efficacy data” on the vaccine. Without referring directly to the vaccine, the MEA said that it would also facilitate the process of making “relevant testing data” available to the Indian regulatory agencies that would decide on further trials needed before the vaccine was used in India.
During a virtual press conference, also held on Thursday, top Russian scientists involved in vaccine production announced plans for Phase-3 of Sputnik V to begin next week, with more than 40,000 volunteers at 45 medical centres taking part in the study.
