30 groups trying to develop corona vaccine: Centre

New Delhi: A total of 30 groups, including big industry and individual academics, are currently engaged in developing a vaccine to cure novel coronavirus in India, and at least 20 of them are keeping a good pace, Professor K. Vijay Raghavan, the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India, said on Thursday.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have embarked on a drug discovery hackathon, where students are trained with information on computational drug discovery, Professor Raghavan said in a press conference.V K Paul, Health member Niti Aayog, said the fight against COVID-19 will be won through vaccine and drugs.

"Our country's science and technology institutions and pharma industry are very strong," he said."India's pharma industry is known as the pharmacy of the world and vaccines made in India are being used and are known all over the world," he said.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 4,531 and the number of cases climbed to 1,58,333 in the country, registering an increase of 194 deaths and 6,566 cases in the last 24 hours since 8 am, the Union Health Ministry said.The number of active COVID-19 cases stand at 86,110 while 67,691 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.