Why Was the ICMR Panel on Vaccines for COVID-19 Dissolved?

Why Was the ICMR Panel on Vaccines for COVID-19 Dissolved?

The group had met up just thrice since inception.

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) dissolved a key committee that was developing a vaccine research protocol and was part of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NTF).

The committee was one of the five created by ICMR Director-General Balram Bhargava on 6 April, and just a month has passed since it has been dissolved.

NTF was working towards creating an all India collaborative clinical research network, while the group for vaccine and drug research and development was looking at exisiting capacities for vaccine research in India, reviewing current vaccines, discovering new research opportunities and reviewing evidence reported The Hindu.

Could the group have been dissolved since the directives they were working towards were not met?

According to sources at The Hindu, the group had met up just thrice since inception.

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The ICMR website states that this group consisted of Gangandeep Kang (Chair), Suman Kanungo (National Institute for Cholera and Enteric Diseases- NICED), Bikash Medhi (Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education and Research), S.S. Das (NICED), Debashish Mitra, (Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics), Sarah Cherian (National Insitute of Virology), Sanjay Mehendale (Hinduja hospital) and Niraj Agrawal (ICMR).

Reportedly, Dr Mitra confirmed that the group had been dissolved, although she added that it might be re-constituted - although she was unaware of it at the moment.

The research groups that the ICMR set up to “identify research priorities and quickly initiate research studies,” are:

1. Clinical Research Group
2. Research on Diagnostics and bio-markers
3. Epidemiology and surveillance
4. Operations Research
5. Vaccines/Drug Research and Development

Also Read: Italy’s Vaccine Neutralises Coronavirus in Human Cells: Scientists

(With inputs from The Hindu.)