Chief Scientist, World Health Organization Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has said that 24 vaccine candidates are in the human clinical trial stage and 150 vaccines are in the pre-clinical stages worldwide. She said, WHO has a robust pipeline of potential COVID vaccine candidates and the more vaccine candidates will maximize the opportunities.

Dr Swaminathan said, three vaccine candidates are in the Phase-3 trial stage which are Oxford vaccine developed by Astrazeneca, mRNA-1273 by Moderna and the chinease vaccine. She said, vaccine development is lengthy and complex process which takes time, but harmonization at different level will fasten the process. She said, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine is very important in the vaccine development process.

Meanwhile, India has become one of the frontrunners in the global effort to develop a vaccine for the containment of COVID-19. Government agencies have stepped up collaboration with private partners to Fastrack the approval process needed for the development of a potential COVID vaccine.

Human clinical trials of the indigenous COVID vaccines have been started at the various levels in the country to identify the efficacy of these potential vaccines. Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila have initiated human clinical trials of their vaccines after getting approval from the government.

Government has assured to provide all the necessary support for the development of vaccine saying that all the regulatory process will be ensured. ICMR and Bharat Biotech have joined hands for the development of potential COVID-19 vaccine called 'Covaxin' whereas the Department of Biotechnology has partially funded the development of Zydus's vaccine ZyCov-D. India is considered a pharmacy of the world and 60 percent of the vaccine at the world level is supplied by India.

A top Indian pharma company Serum Institute of India has bagged a contract with British drugmaker AstraZeneca to supply one billion doses of Oxford University's potential COVID-19 vaccine. This vaccine is currently at the third level of the human clinical trial stage.