India has joined the Centralized Laboratory Network (CLN) which currently has 15 partner facilities in 13 countries that works to test vaccines which can be used during pandemic, epidemic disease outbreak. CLN is a part of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Network is the largest global group which has standardised methods and materials for testing.
The new members of the CLN now are Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV), Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) (Senegal), KAVI Institute of Clinical Research (KAVI ICR) & University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID) (Kenya), Synexa Life Sciences (South Africa) and Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) (Uganda).
CEPI-funded network aims to identify the most promising vaccine candidates rapidly and accurately against emerging infectious diseases and the expanded network is working at supporting sustainable regional outbreak preparedness infrastructure also.