Almost every day Indian media carry some positive news about the Covid vaccine and there is an impression that it is on the way and by winter it should be available in India. But is that true?
Some media reports in Indiasuggest that a Covid-19 vaccine may become available in the market as early asOctober. How realistic are these hopes and how far are we actually from thatcoveted shot in the arm?
Currently, there are more than115 potential Covid-19 vaccine candidates in different countries at variousstages of development.
Even as the number of Covid-19cases across the world crossed the 5 million-mark this week and the death tollrose to over 3.4 lakh, a successful vaccine to tame the deadly coronavirusremains elusive.
However, the World HealthOrganization (WHO) has identified 7-8 of these vaccines as frontrunners inresearch and trials.
Oxford University vaccine – the good news and the bad
The Oxford University vaccine hasbeen named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.To begin with, it was tested on rhesus macaquemonkeys and showed promising results. But recently this potential vaccinesuffered a setback. During the trial, the vaccine failed to prevent Covid-19infection in monkeys.
However, the good news was theanimals injected with this vaccine got Covid-19 infection but did not developviral pneumonia, one the main reasons for severe complications and death. Soaccording to experts, it was partially effective.
However, the Oxford Universityannounced on May 22 that they are satisfied with the results and are now movingon to Phase 2 of the trial.
Moderna Inc vaccine – a novel approach to deal with coronavirus
Moderna Inc is an Americanbiotechnology company that is developing the vaccine jointly with the NationalInstitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Its vaccine under trial has beennamed mRNA-1273.
The Food and Drug Administration(FDA) of the USA has approved Moderna to initiate a Phase II clinical trialstudy, which will include 600 healthy volunteers.
Serum Institute of India
Adar Poonawala, the CEO of SerumInstitute of India (SII), seems to be the man India is banking on to bring in asuccessful vaccine for Indians. SII is a global giant when it comes toproducing vaccines. It produces 1.5 billion doses of 20 different vaccineswhich are exported to 165 different countries.
In fact, SII has alreadymanufactured and stocked millions of doses of the Oxford University vaccineunder trial so that if approved, it can be quickly brought to the market.
All the headlines one sees aboutSII promising a vaccine by October is about this stock of the Oxford Universityvaccine being manufactured in anticipation of approval. But there are many ifsand buts.
Other Indian Vaccine
Zydus Cadila from Ahmedabad isusing the virus vector approach, along with developing a DNA platform vaccine.Then there is Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which is working on 'CoroFlu', aone-drop nasal vaccine built on a pre-existing flu vaccine.
Biological E, IndianImmunologicals, Mynvax/Indian Institute of Science and Premas Biotech are otherIndian companies working on Covid-19 vaccines. But till the time they cross atleast Phase I of trial, it would be difficult to guess the prospects of thesevaccines.
