New Delhi: India will participate in the WHO's multi-country "solidarity trial" for developing potential treatments and drugs for COVID-19, apex health research body Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Friday.
The decision came as the country reported 2,547 cases of the coronavirus infection, including 62 deaths so far.
"ICMR will collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO) for public health emergency 'SOLIDARITY TRIAL- An international randomised trial of additional treatments for COVID-19 in hospitalised patients'," the ICMR said in a statement.
The trial will be coordinated in India by scientist at ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute, Pune, Dr Sheela Godbole, the research body's officials said.
Earlier Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR Raman R Gangakhedkar had said, "Earlier we did not do it because our numbers were so small and our contribution would have looked minuscule."
He had said the initial priority of the ICMR in developing drugs was more towards re-purposed molecules than new molecules. Thus was because new molecule research tends to take longer time, Gangakhedkar.
"And, we don't have so much time when we are facing this infection," he had said. The ICMR is also working with the department of bio-technology, department of science and technology and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 and diagnostic kits.
"At the same time we are watching the efforts of some of the scientific groups that are working on vaccines. Currently, there are all together 30 different groups which are working on developing vaccines out of which at least five are already going for animal toxicity studies," Gangakhedkar had said.
"We have indicated our willingness to go for vaccine trials if they pass out on animal study for our own Indian population," he had said.
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