With the probabilities of a COVID-19 vaccine being available soon increasing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the mobile technology are going to be used for mass inoculation against the pandemic.
Speaking at the India Mobile Congress, he said mobile technology has enabled benefits worth billions of dollars to succeed in the deserving and also helped the poor and vulnerable during the pandemic.
“It is additionally with the assistance of mobile technology that we’ll start one among the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination drive,” he said.
He didn’t provide details.
Three leading coronavirus vaccine developers — Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc and Bharat Biotech — have applied for emergency use authorization in India.
While Pfizer India has applied to drug regulator for permission to import its experimental mRNA vaccine purchasable and distribution without the need for local clinical trials, Serum Institute of India Ltd, AstraZeneca’s India vaccine partner, has applied for emergency use authorisation using data from Phase-III trials that were conducted locally, also as in Brazil and therefore the UK.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has sought nod Covaxin which is being indigenously developed together with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The applications mean that a mass vaccine effort might be shortly underway during a nation that has the world’s second-largest coronavirus caseload.
At the IMC, Modi said, “We got to work together to make sure a timely roll-out of 5G to leapfrog into the longer term and empower many Indians.”
He also pitched for creating India a worldwide hub for telecommunication system, design, development and manufacturing.
Speaking on mobile technology, he said it had been due to this that the govt was ready to provide benefits worth billions of dollars to many Indians.
