NEW DELHI: India may begin vaccinating people against the virus in January and the government's first priority has been safety and efficacy of the vaccine, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said. "I personally feel may be in January in any stage or any week, there can be a time when we can be in a position to give the first vaccine shot to people of India" Harsh Vardhan said.

He was asked about India's vaccination drive against the pandemic. The minister said that the vaccines, including those who have applied for emergency use authorisation are being analysed by the regulator.

"India is not less than any country when it comes to vaccine and research. Our first priority has been the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. We do not want any comprise on that. Our regulators are analysing them with seriousness," he said. The minister had said on Saturday that the country's scientists and health experts have worked on the development of an indigenous vaccine and in the upcoming six to seven months India will have the capacity to inoculate about 30 crore people.

"Our scientists and health experts have worked on the development of a vaccine by genome sequencing and isolation of the virus and developed an indigenous vaccine. In 6-7 months, we will have the capacity to inoculate about 30 crore people" he had said addressing the 22nd Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting on COVID-19. There are six vaccine candidates in different clinical trial stages in India including Covishield, Covaxin, ZyCoV-D, Sputnik V, NVX-CoV2373 and recombinant protein antigen-based vaccine. Besides this, three vaccine candidates are in the pre-clinical stage of which one of the vaccine candidates is in the pre-development stage being researched by Aurobindo Pharma, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.

"Six vaccines are in the clinical trial stage. And there are three vaccines in the pre-clinical stage. Some of them may get licensed in the coming weeks but we cannot foretell at this moment of time because licensing is the domain of the national regulator the Drugs Controller General of India," Bhushan had said at a press conference. "These vaccines are of two to three doses. Even after vaccination, precautions must be followed as advised by the scientists," he noted.