New Delhi, July 9: The government on Thursday said India has two potential indigenous vaccines for coronavirus or COVID-19 and human trials of both will start soon. The two vaccines are Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech. Addressing a press conference, Rajesh Bhushan, OSD, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, animal studies on the potential COVID-19 vaccines has completed. India's COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Per Million Lowest Compared to Five Most Affected Countries, Says Govt.

"India has two indigenous vaccine candidates, one of Bharat biotech and one of Cadila. Both vaccines completed animal toxicity studies after approval. DCGI has permitted these 2 vaccines to go in for phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. The trials are yet to begin," Rajesh Bhushan told the press conference. Last week, Zydus Cadila group received approval from Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) to initiate human clinical trials in India. No Community Transmission of COVID-19 in India So Far, Says Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

Bharat Biotech has also said begin human trials of Covaxin in July. Bhushan also said that despite a population of 1.3 billion people, India has been able to manage COVID-19 relatively well and the cases per million of the population in the country remains among the lowest in the world. "We are the second-most populous country of the world. Despite a population of 1.3 billion people, India has been able to manage COVID-19 relatively well," he said.

"If you look at cases per million population, it still remains amongst the lowest in the world. We have 15 deaths per million population whereas we have countries where it is 40 times as much," he added. Earlier today, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday sought to quell fears of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country, saying there is no such thing yet.

"During our discussions today, experts again stated that there is no community transmission in India. There may be some localised pockets where transmission is high but as a country, there’s no community transmission," Harsh Vardhan said. India has recorded the highest single-day spike of over 24,879 new coronavirus cases and 487 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the total tally to 7,67,296 with 21,129 deaths, Health Ministry's data revealed on Thursday.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 09, 2020 05:14 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).