N.B. Nair
Bengaluru (ISJ Exclusive): The global pandemic of COVID-19, which broke out on 30 January 2020 in India took away the lives of 5,30,720 persons as on 8 January 2023, according to data published by the federal Health Ministry. The government galvanised all its resources and energy to mitigate the viral spread since January 2020.
The first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19, COVAXIN, was commercially developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology, a laboratory under the Indian Council of Medical Research, which was released for the first round of mass vaccination, even before it received the mandatory approval from the national drug regulator.
The second vaccine was developed by Oxford University’s Jenner Institute and European pharma major AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India.
Both these vaccines require a cold-chain system to ensure proper storage and distribution across the country. Cold-chain is an interconnected system, with refrigeration equipment to store the vaccine at recommended temperatures to maintain its potency.
A team of scientists led by Professor Raghavan Varadarajan of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru along with the IISc-incubated startup Mynvax developed another vaccine that can withstand the hot climatic conditions of India; its data was published in November 2020.
“We kept it for over a month at 37 degree Celsius without loss of efficacy. Therefore, a cold chain may not be required (for storage and transportation),” Professor Varadarajan told Indian Science Journal.
The team knocked on the doors of the federal government and several prospective manufacturers for funding to carry out the process development, safety, and toxicity tests before proceeding with clinical trials.
“We didn’t have the facilities and it costs a lot of money. We needed to get it done through a contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) under GMP conditions (Good Manufacturing Practices). It took some time to secure the necessary funding, essentially from Government sources, and money was eventually released only in April 2022,” Professor Varadarajan explained. “The CMO is making the protein and we will initiate the clinical studies later this year.”
Professor Varadarajan said there is a lot of change in the virus itself, including the emergence of several variants of Omicron. But the money was sanctioned for a vaccine based on the original strain. However, this also works to some degree against Omicron and its variants. The team plans to update the vaccine to protect better against more recent strains, though it requires additional funding.
The IISc scientist said, their team is going ahead with trials for the approved vaccine, for which funds were released. “If all goes well, we will start the first clinical trials in a few months’ time.”
“Most people in the country have been exposed to the virus, and in combination with vaccination, this will offer some protection, even when the virus changes. Currently, the elderly and people with comorbidities are those who would most benefit from vaccination,” he said as he explained the latest variants of the virus spreading in some countries, including China.
Currently, all the vaccines used in India are based on the original strains, and for the big manufacturers, the market or uptake is not too large and for them, it is not a priority for them to update the vaccine, commented another scientist.
India’s vaccination coverage has exceeded over 220 crores as on 8 January 2022, according to data published by the Federal Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
