Day 2, 2021: India Gets The Second COVID-19 Vaccine, Covaxin!
Covaxin vaccine is
developed by Bharat Biotech of Hyderabad, a reputed drug manufacturer of India,
in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the
National Institute of Virology (NIV). Not much information is available in the
public domain about the making process, apart from the fact that it is an inactivated
vaccine developed from the Indian strain of the Coronavirus. The efficacy rate
is also not known like in the cases of all other approved vaccines. At the
moment it is in the third phase of clinical human trials with only around half
of the proposed 27,000 volunteers getting enrolled so far. However, as per the
data of the second phase trials the two doses of the vaccine applied with a break
of 28 days had yielded promising results of immunity against COVID-19 for at
least three months.
The expert panel has, of course, made it mandatory for Bharat Biotech to go on making the data available to the DCGI as their trials progress, and there are several conditionalities involved too in the recommendation. But a sense of hurry cannot still be ruled out entirely, particularly in light of the fact that there was an official announcement earlier to make the fully indigenous vaccine ready for use by August 15, 2020 which was withdrawn immediately thence. However, the Indian regulator is known for its painstaking research and analysis of data before approving any drug or vaccine, and therefore, since the expert panel has indeed recommended Covaxin to the DCGI for approval it is almost assured that there are no safety concerns and with all the positives for the immunity data added to it. In any case, it is still early days as far as the final say on the effectiveness of all the vaccines is concerned, the world over, and that no vaccine can ever be cent percent efficacious.
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