Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), a Hyderabad based biotechnology company has got the approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to start human clinical trials of the first indigenous Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine candidate – Covaxin.
Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology (NIV), which is a part of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The human trials for the vaccine will now begin across the country in July 2020.
ICMR expects to launch Covaxin for public health use by August 15, 2020, which also happens to be the Independence Day of India. To step up these efforts, ICMR has identified 12 institutes for clinical trials and has also written to all stockholders to treat it as top priority.
The institutes selected for the clinical trial are in Visakhapatnam, Rohtak, New Delhi, Patna, Belgaum, Nagpur, Gorakhpur, Kattankulathur, Hyderabad, Arya Nagar, Kanpur and Goa.
The company claims that the pre-clinical trials were quite promising and exhibited substantial safety and effective immune responses. The inactivated vaccine has been developed at its high-containment facility located in Genome Valley, high-technology business district in Hyderabad.
For the records, Bharat Biotech is also known for making world’s cheapest Hepatitis vaccine. Besides, it was also reportedly the first firm in the world to find a Zika virus vaccine. The company has used Vero cell culture platform technologies to make several vaccines for Polio, Rabies, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis and Chikungunya.
Meanwhile, with 20,903 fresh cases and 379 casualties in the past 24 hours, India’s total tally of COVID-19 has surged to 6,25,544 cases and 18,213 casualties. Maharashtra continues to be worst affected State with 6,328 fresh cases and 125 casualties. The total number of cases in the State are 1,86,626 and there have been 8,178 casualties. Having 98,392 cases and 1,321 casualties, Tamil Nadu is the next most affected State, reporting 4,343 fresh cases and 57 casualties. The national capital stands third with 2,373 cases and 61 casualties. There are 92,175 cases in Delhi and there have been 2,864 casualties.
In other developments, the Centre said that since April 1, 2020, it has distributed over 2.02 crores N95 masks and more than 1.18 crore personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits to States, Union Territories and Central Government Institutions. Of these, 20.64 N95 masks and 11.78 lakh PPEs have been given to Maharashtra, 9.81 lakh N95 masks along with 5.39 lakh PPEs have been given to Tamil Nadu and 12.76 lakh N95 masks and 7.81 lakh PPEs have been supplied in Delhi. Over 6.12 crores hydroxychloroquine tablets have been distributed along with 11,300 ‘Make in India’ ventilators.
Taking it to twitter, MoHFW tweeted, “#CoronaVirusUpdates #IndiaFightsCorona More than 2 Crore #N95 Masks & more than 1 Crore #PPEs distributed Free of Cost by Central Government to States in the fight against #COVID19. @PMOIndia @drharshvardhan @AshwiniKChoubey @PIB_India @CovidIndiaSeva.”
The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh – Yogi Adityanath has stressed the need for an advanced centre for research on COVID-19. He has directed the officials to submit a workplan for it. The CM also asked officials to consult the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute; King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow; in this regard.
The MoHFW has revised the home isolation guidelines to include asymptomatic positive patients in the list of mild or pre-symptomatic COVID-19 infection cases. However, patients suffering from immune-compromised status (like HIV, transplant recipients, cancer therapy) are not eligible for home isolation. Also, elderly patients aged more than 60 years and those with co-morbid conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, chronic lung / liver / kidney disease and cerebro-vascular disease among others shall only be allowed home isolation after proper evaluation by the treating medical officer.
