A woman walks along a closed shopping mall area during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in New Delhi, India on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

 A group of medical researchers and scientists that interacted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday is learnt to have told him that "over 30 Indian vaccines were in different stages of Corona vaccine development", with a few going on to the trial stages.

This development assumes significance in the wake of the ongoing novel Coronavirus (or COVID-19) pandemic spread. According to latest figures, 1,694 people have died due to COVID-19 even as total cases reached 49,391 in the country. India has been under Lockdown since March 25.

According to an official statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office late on Tuesday night, the PM took a detailed review of the current status of India's efforts in vaccine development, drug discovery, diagnosis and testing.

The statement added that three approaches were being taken in drug development in the country.

"First, the repurposing of existing drugs. At least four drugs are undergoing synthesis and examination in this category. Secondly, the development of new candidate drugs and molecules are being driven by linking high performance computational approached with laboratory verification. Thirdly, plant extracts and products are being examined for general anti-viral properties," elaborated the statement.

In diagnosis and COVID-19 testing, several academic research institutions and start-ups had developed new tests, both for the RT-PCR approach and for the antibody detection.

In addition, by linking laboratories all over the country, capacity for both these kinds of tests had been enormously scaled up.