Gagandeep Kang, a professor of Microbiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore said that a vaccine based in India may be ready likely by early 2021 but rolling it out to the massive 1.3 billion population will be the biggest challenge.
“By year-end we will have data that will tell us which vaccines are working and which ones are not going to do so well,” said Kang, who until July was heading the Indian government committee looking into prospective indigenous vaccine candidates. “If we get good results by year-end then we are looking at vaccines being potentially available in tiny numbers in first half of 2021 and larger numbers in the latter part.”
She said that vaccines, indigenous or internationally developed by pharmaceuticals (in West) currently in phase three trials had a 50% chance of success.