India-US to begin joint Ayurvedic Clinical trials for COVID-19

On July 9, 2020, India and United States began joint Ayurvedic Clinical trials against COVID-19. The joint research is to be supported by the Indo-US Science Technology Forum (IUSSTF).

Highlights

There are three ongoing collaborations between US-based institutions and India Vaccine companies.

Other Projects

Both the countries have been conducting several such projects. This includes the following

• There are more than 200 National Institute of Health funded projects in India. These projects involve more than 20 institutions in the NIH network.
• India and US have been collaborating under Vaccine Action Programme (VAP) that resulted in the development of ROTAVAC Vaccine against the Rota virus. Rota Virus causes diarrhea in children.
• The countries through their collaborative programmes have developed vaccines for Influenza, Tuberculosis, Chikungunya under the Vaccine Action Programme.

Vaccine Action Programme

It is a 33-year collaboration between India and USA. The partners under the programme include National Institutes of Health, USA, Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Indian Council of Medical Research.