India working with global partners to develop vaccines to fight COVID-19: Health Ministry

New Delhi [India], April 17 (ANI): The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Friday said that India is working with global partners so that effective vaccines can be developed to fight against COVID-19.
"We are also working on viral sequencing and vaccine development. India is working with global partners so that effective vaccines can be developed to fight against COVID-19. It is a time-consuming effort. We are trying to speed up these processes," Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health and Family Welfare said here during the daily briefing on COVID-19.
"Compared to other countries we are doing good. We need to improve our efforts further," he added.
He said that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs are developing indigenous designs for PPEs, oxygen concentrators, ventilators, and other ancillary support devices.
"CSIR labs are working on indigenous manufacturing of rapid testing kits and rapid antibody kits. We will be able to make 10 lakh kits/month of each type by May," he added.
Aggarwal said that the average growth rate factor, which is calculated as a proportion of the number of cases of a day compared to the previous day, is witnessing a decline of 40 per cent.
"We have been witnessing an average growth factor at 1.2 since April 1 which stood at 2.1 (average) between March 15- March 31. Hence, there is 40 per cent decline in average growth factor even as we increased COVID-19 testings," he said
Aggarwal informed that a total of 1,749 people have been cured, which is equal to 13.6 per cent of the cases.
"With 1,007 fresh cases of coronavirus reported in the last 24 hours, the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country has reached 13,387. A total of 23 new deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours," added Aggarwal. (ANI)