India will launch one of the largest vaccination programs in the world today.
New Delhi:
India will launch one of the world’s largest vaccination programs with domestically manufactured vaccines on Saturday, one developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, the other by Bharat Biotech International with a state institute. The first to receive the vaccine will be Rs 3 crore health workers and other frontline workers, followed by roughly Rs 27 crore over 50 or considered high risk. Here’s a look at the technology behind the two drugs to be delivered.
Covishield
Developed by the University of Oxford and British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, Covishield has become the most promising vaccine for countries like India, where cost and logistics are a consideration. important.
Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which use a newer approach called mRNA that makes them more complex, fragile and requires ultra-cold temperatures, Covishield is a vector vaccine that is slower but cheaper and, more importantly, can Stable for six months at standard refrigerator temperatures.
The vaccine uses a weakened version of a common cold virus called adenovirus that affects chimpanzees but not humans. It attaches itself to cells and injects DNA that tells them to make the coronavirus spike protein, the structures on the surface of the coronavirus, giving it that studded appearance.
This draws the attention of the immune system, which recognizes it as foreign and creates a defense to attack the real coronavirus when a real infection occurs.
The first results published by researchers at Oxford-AstraZeneca in the UK showed that the vaccine was around 70 percent effective.
Covaxin
Developed by the Indian biotech company Bharat Biotech and the country’s leading clinical research body, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), Covaxin is the second government-approved vaccine.
It is an inactivated vaccine, one of the oldest methods of vaccinating people, which means that it uses inactivated whole viruses that are injected to trigger an immune response. These entire batches of coronavirus must be cultured, “killed” with a chemical or heat, and then turned into a vaccine, making it a longer process.
Chinese companies Sinovac and Sinpharm are also using the same technique for their coronavirus vaccines.
There have been some concerns about Covaxin because its efficacy has not yet been proven in Phase 3 clinical trials, unlike Covishield and the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. While the first two phases of vaccine trials generally find out if they are safe, the third phase generally finds out whether the vaccine is effective or not.
Phase 3 trials for Covaxin are still ongoing and this has worried some health experts who consider it rushed, as the vaccine has limited approval in “clinical trial mode.”
Experts from India’s drug regulator this month recommended tighter monitoring of the vaccine, as is done during clinical trials and the government has ordered 55 lakh or just half the doses of Covaxin as Covishield. Brazil this week became the first foreign country to sign an agreement to buy the Indian shot.
Others
Among the vaccines yet to arrive in India are those made by the US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and its German-based partner BioNTech and another by the US company Moderna that are being used in the US, UK and others. countries.
Both use messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, a kind of genetic software that asks cells to make a part of the coronavirus spike protein, putting them on guard against infection. The approach can produce a vaccine quickly because scientists only need the genetic sequence of the virus, making it the pioneer of the pandemic vaccine years ago.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which has been approved by eight countries so far, is undergoing late-stage trials in India after completing a phase 2 study. An adenoviral vector vaccine such as Covishield is expected to apply soon. approval of emergency use in the country.
The vaccine division of the US multinational Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, has also said it is on track to launch its single-shot coronavirus vaccine in March and expects to have clear data on its effectiveness by the end of this month or early this month. February. It is also a vector vaccine.
(With inputs from agencies).
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