Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the pan-India inoculation of Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday at 10.30 am through video conferencing.

The coronavirus vaccination drive, one of the world’s largest vaccination programme, begins weeks after the DCGI approved Oxford coronvirus vaccine ‘Covishield’ manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute, and indigenously developed ‘Covaxin’ of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country.

In India, priority groups who are more exposed to the Covid-19 infection and are likely in the high-risk zone would be vaccinated first. Healthcare workers, both in the government and private sectors, including Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) workers, will receive the vaccine during this phase. Adequate doses of both Covishield and Covaxin have already been delivered to all states/UTs with the active support of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

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Covaxin, the indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccine, developed by the ICMR and Bharat Biotech International, is being tested at 12 institutes across India.

The Hyderabad-based firm said the data from the study on primates substantiate the immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate.

“Bharat Biotech proudly announces the animal study results of COVAXIN – These results demonstrate the protective efficacy in a live viral challenge model,” Bharat Biotech tweeted September 11.

Bharat Biotech proudly announces the animal study results of COVAXIN™ – These results demonstrate the protective efficacy in a live viral challenge model.

Read more about the results here – https://t.co/f81JUSfWpD@icmr_niv #BharatBiotech #COVAXIN #Safety #Vaccine #SARSCoV2 pic.twitter.com/fva1SOcLOr

— Bharat Biotech (@BharatBiotech) September 11, 2020

Bharat Biotech has said in a release that it developed and assessed the protective efficacy and immunogenicity of an inactivated Sar-CoV-2 vaccine (BBV152) or Covaxin in rhesus macaques. Twenty macaques were divided into four groups of five animals each, it said.

One group was administered with placebo, while three groups were immunized with 3 different vaccine candidates at 0 and 14 days. All the macaques were exposed to viral challenge 14 days after the 2nd dose.

BBIL’s #Covaxin(BBV152) found protective in Macaques: A two-dose vaccination regimen using 3µg dose of the vaccine with adjuvant B induce a significant immune response and provide effective protection in macaques challenged with #SARSCoV2 https://t.co/FgSnD2eCmA pic.twitter.com/hQHh2klAnX

— Vipin M. Vashishtha (@vipintukur) September 11, 2020

The results showed protective efficacy, increasing coronavirus specific IgG and neutralizing antibodies, reducing replication of the virus in the nasal cavity, throat, and lung tissues of monkey.

No evidence of pneumonia was observed by histopathological examination in vaccinated groups, unlike the placebo group.

Remarkable immunogenicity and protective efficacy of BBV152, an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in rhesus macaques https://t.co/b82dA6QlcW ICMR-NIV made very good effort to demonstrate potential immunogenicity in non-human✌️ Primate with BBV152. ! @ICMRDELHI @drharshvardhan

— Dinesh kumar (@Dineshk38263974) September 11, 2020

Adverse events were not seen in animals immunized with a two-dose vaccination regimen.

The vaccine candidate was found to generate robust immune responses. Thus, preventing infection and disease in the primates upon high amounts of exposure to live coronavirus.

Covaxin is one of the frontrunners in the race for a covid-19 vaccine in India. It is an “inactivated” vaccine – it works by injecting doses of the virus that have been killed aiming to prompt the body to build antibodies against it without the virus a posing a threat.

Each stage of a vaccine’s clinical trial tests its safety and ability to develop an effective immune response. Phase 1 focuses on determining safety and dosage in a small group of healthy participants, while Phase 2 looks at the vaccine’s effectiveness. Phase 3 looks into these aspects in a much larger population that would represent a wider demographic.

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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has partnered with Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) to fast track clinical trials of the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine. ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune has provided the virus strain to BBIL to develop the vaccine.

The clinical trials will be held in 12 institutes across the country. In a letter to these institutes, the ICMR stated that it aims to launch the vaccine for public health use by August 15, after completion of all clinical trials.

Meanwhile, India’s second COVID-19 vaccine produced pharma giant Zydus Cadila got approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct phase I and phase II human clinical trials.

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