Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has said that the first vaccine against coronavirus will be developed in India by the end of this year. The minister said that one of the vaccines is in the third stage of testing.

“One of our COVID-19 vaccine candidates is in the third phase of the clinical trial. We are very confident that a vaccine will be developed by end of this year,” news agency ANI quoted Harsh Vardhan, as saying on Saturday after he inaugurated a makeshift NDRF hospital in Ghaziabad on Saturday.

The health minister added that India has the best recovery rate in the world while the fatality rate is also one of the lowest.

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“As far as COVID19 numbers are concerned, our fatality rate (1.87%) is really low and we have the best recovery rate (75%) in the world. We have around 1500 testing labs now. It is a great achievement in itself,” he said.

As per PTI data, India’s coronavirus tally has breached the 30-lakh mark, while recoveries have also reached 22.71 lakh. The death toll stands at over 55,000. India is the third worst-affected nation in the world by the coronavirus after US and Brazil.

The health ministry on Saturday said India has crossed a significant milestone of testing more than 10 lakh samples for COVID-19 in 24 hours on Friday. The number of cumulative COVID-19 tests stands at 3,44,91,073, the ministry said.