World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, on Monday, 3 August, said that though several vaccines are in the third phase of clinical trials, there’s no “silver bullet” presently and there never might be.
“Number of cases globally has increased more than five-fold to 17.5 million and the number of deaths has more than tripled to 680,000 since WHO's emergency committee on #COVID19 last met 3 months ago,” Dr Ghebreyesus said, as quoted by ANI.
“A number of vaccines are now in phase-3 clinical trials and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection. However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be.”Dr Tedros, Director-General, World Health Organisation
The comments by Dr Ghebreyesus come the day the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) has given approval to the Serum Institute of India, Pune, to conduct Phase II and III clinical trials of Oxford University-Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine in India, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
The SII received approval by India's top drug regulator on Sunday, after an evaluation based on the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee on COVID-19.
With 52,972 new coronavirus cases and 771 deaths in the last 24 hours, India's overall COVID-19 tally on Monday stood at 1,803,695, while the total fatalities increased to 38,135, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
As of Monday morning, the total number of cases globally stood at 18,002,567 and the fatalities rose to 687,930, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.
The US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 4,665,932 and 154,841, respectively, according to the CSSE.
Brazil came in the second place with 2,733,677 infections and 94,104 deaths.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)