Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Dr K Vijay Raghavan has said around 30 groups in the country from big industry to individual academics, are trying to develop vaccines to fight COVID-19.

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and a Hyderabad based leading Vaccine manufacturing company Bharat Biotech International Limited have partnered to develop a fully indigenous vaccine for COVID-19. The vaccine will be developed using the virus strain which has been isolated at ICMR's National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.

The details of the virus strain has been successfully transferred from NIV, Pune to Bharat Biotech. Work on developing the vaccine has been initiated by the two partner entities. NIV will provide continuous support to Bharat Biotech for vaccine development.

ICMR and Bharat Biotech will seek fast-track approval to expedite vaccine development, subsequent animal studies and clinical evaluation of the vaccine.

Briefing media in New Delhi, he said, of them around 20 groups are keeping a good pace. He said, the efforts to develop the vaccine are being made in three ways- indigenously, in collaboration with other companies and by working with the leading companies.

Dr Vijayragahvan said, Indian institutions are engaged in developing four types of vaccines for this virus.He said, discovery of a new vaccine is very challenging. He added that AICTE and CSIR have embarked on a drug discovery hackathon which is a high-end hackathon where students are trained with information on how to do computational drug discovery. He also said, five important things need to be kept in mind for the prevention of COVID-19 before vaccine arrives. They are Social distancing, hand hygiene, surface cleaning, tracking and testing.

In reply to a question, he said, no change in the fundamental properties of the novel Coronavirus has been witnessed till now.NITI Aayog member, Dr V K Paul said that the fight against novel Coronavirus will be won through vaccine and drugs. He said, country's science and technology institutions and pharma industry are very strong. He said, about 20 companies are providing diagnostic kits to the countries.

Recently,US President Donald Trump has said that his administration is confident the United States will have a vaccine for Covid-19 by the end of this year.

The comments came during a programme at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. He said that several pharmaceutical companies are close to developing the vaccine.

Mr Trump said he is not concerned about which country develops a vaccine first but just want to get a vaccine that works.

Public health officials have said a coronavirus vaccine could take a year to 18 months. Vaccines often take many years to develop and distribute.

According to media reports, there are 14 potential vaccines for COVID-19 under development as part of the effort to fast-track vaccine development.