The Health Ministry of India on Tuesday confirmed that the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech had applied for emergency use approval of its coronavirus vaccine in India, as per ANI report. It added that some of the vaccine candidates would get licensed in the next few weeks.

The Health Ministry added that the Prime Minister of India had interacted with all vaccine manufacturers and scientists, saying that six vaccine candidates were in clinical trial stage in the country.

The Ministry, however, did not mention the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that had applied for emergency approval of its vaccine on December 5.

Rajesh Bhushan, the Secretary of the Union Health Ministry added, “Once we get a green signal from our scientists, we’ll launch massive production of the vaccine. We’ve made all the preparations & drawn an outline to ramp up production of vaccine & to make it available to each & every person in the shortest possible time.”

Bhusan added, that the National Expert Group on vaccine administration for COVID-19 would provide guidance “on prioritisation of population groups, procurement and inventory management, vaccine selection and vaccine delivery and tracking mechanism.”

The Health Ministry further stated that preparatory activities for the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines were being carried out across the country by the Central government in collaboration with the states and union territories.

The Secretary of the Health Ministry added, that the vaccination procedure “cannot just be a State’s or the Centre’s responsibility, it has to be people’s participation.”

The Health Ministry also said that after taking into account of NEGVAC’s recommendation the COVID-19 vaccine would first be provided to healthcare providers and workers in healthcare setting, personnel from state & central police, armed forces, home guards, civil defence& disaster management volunteers& municipal workers & persons above 50 years.