Covid-19 vaccine: Key India-made vaccines set to be rolled out soon

New Delhi, June 03: There has been shortage of vaccines after the central government decided to open up COVID-19 vaccination to all those above 18 years. To reach an ambitious target of vaccinating its entire population by December, the government has ramped up efforts to procure vaccine across the globe.

Biological E is expected to produce 30 crore doses, Zydus Cadila 5 crore, Serum Institute of India 20 crore doses of Novavax, and Bharat Biotech 10 crore doses of its nasal vaccine, while Gennova will make available 6 crore doses and Sputnik V 15.6 crore doses.

Here is a list of other India-made vaccines that may be rolled out soon:

Zydus Cadila

The Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical company's Zydus Cadila has been authorised to provide its ZyCoV-D COVID vaccine. This will be the country's second indigenously-developed vaccine against the novel coronavirus, after Bharat Biotech's Covaxin.

Gennova

Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals has given approval to provide vaccine doses against COVID-19. Gennova will be providing 6 crore doses. HCCOG19 is an indigenously developed vaccine on a mRNA platform.

mRNA vaccines are considered safe as mRNA is non-infectious, non-integrating in nature, and degraded by standard cellular mechanisms.

They are highly efficacious because of their inherent capability of being translatable into the protein structure inside the cell cytoplasm. Additionally, mRNA vaccines are fully synthetic and do not require a host for growth, for example, eggs or bacteria.

Therefore, they can be quickly manufactured inexpensively to ensure their availability and accessibility for mass vaccination on a sustainable basis.

Bharat Biotech's Nasal Vaccine:

The central government has said that they hope to procure 10 crore doses of the nasal vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech by December. The vaccine candidate is currently under phase 1 trials. According to Bharat Biotech, its intranasal vaccine, BBV154, creates an immune response at the site of infection (in the nasal mucosa) essential for blocking both infection and transmission of Covid-19.

Covovax: Clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine Covovax have begun in India and the company hopes to launch it by September this year.

In August 2020, US-based vaccine maker Novavax, Inc had announced a licence agreement with SII for the development and commercialisation of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, in low and middle-income countries and India.

SII is already supplying AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, in India and to other countries across the world.