Also inaugurated ICMR’s mobile stroke unit
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Government of India launched the vaccine portal for COVID-19 and National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 developed by ICMR. Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR and other dignitaries from ICMR were present at the inauguration ceremony.
He also inaugurated ICMR’s mobile stroke unit and hoped that in view of the large burden of stroke and absence of stroke care facilities in Assam, this initiative will go a long way in addressing the needs of the people in this area.
Releasing these two web portals, Dr Vardhan commended ICMR for always being at the forefront of health research in the country and for now leading the country in tackling the unprecedented pandemic through scientific rigour and innovation. He hoped all queries of common people on the vaccine development process would be addressed through this portal.
Dr Vardhan also launched the National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 developed by ICMR, which will collect systematic data on clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, clinical course of COVID-19 disease, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients. The data will serve as an invaluable tool for formulating appropriate patient management strategies, predicting disease severity, patient outcomes etc, according to a release.
Dr Vardhan added that the portal on National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 will aim at collecting good quality real time clinical data to inform evidence-based clinical practice, research, formulating guidelines and policy making.
The vaccine portal (https://vaccine.icmr.org.in) consists of information regarding India’s efforts towards vaccine development against various diseases including the most recent COVID-19.
On India’s fight against COVID-19, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “India’s continuously rising Recovery Rate and progressively falling Case Fatality Rate have proven the success of the COVID-19 containment strategy followed by all States and UTs. From having one lab to over 1800 labs today, we have come a long way in strengthening our capabilities. We have successfully ramped up our testing capacity which has touched 15 lakh daily tests.”
Dr Harsh Vardhan also urged people to follow COVID appropriate behaviour. He reminded people about the Social Vaccine of wearing masks/face covers while in public, following hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette, and maintaining physical distancing or Do Gaz ki Doori to curb spread of the infection.