Covaxin’s efficacy gaining recognition

Hyderabad: Covaxin, the first indigenous Covid vaccine developed and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, continues to receive recognition from various quarters. The vaccine recently came in for praise from Dr Francis H Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH), primary agency in the United States for public health research. Following the publishing of interim […]

Hyderabad: Covaxin, the first indigenous Covid vaccine developed and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, continues to receive recognition from various quarters.

The vaccine recently came in for praise from Dr Francis H Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH), primary agency in the United States for public health research.

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Following the publishing of interim results of the phase 3 clinical trials of Covaxin in ‘The Lancet’, Dr Collins said, “Covaxin, which is an inactivated-virus vaccine, has 77.8 per cent efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 patients and no safety concerns in the published interim analysis of randomised control trials of over 25,000 adults in India.”

The top US official said on Twitter that Covaxin was an inactivated virus vaccine with an adjuvant that was discovered with the support of NIH. The adjuvant, which is part of Covaxin, was developed with the funding of NIH.

In its report on the adjuvant, the NIH had said that ‘an adjuvant developed with the funding from the National Institutes of Health has contributed to the success of the highly efficacious Covaxin Covid-19 vaccine, which roughly 25 million people have received to date in India and elsewhere’.

Adjuvants are substances formulated as part of a vaccine to boost immune responses and enhance a vaccine’s effectiveness. The adjuvant used in Covaxin, Alhydroxiquim-II, was discovered and tested in the laboratory by the biotech company ViroVax, Kansas with support from the NIAID Adjuvant Development Programme.

While Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna, which are being administered in US and Europe, can be kept at room temperature for just 12 hours, Covaxin can be kept for up to three months at room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Senior public health officials here said the ability to store Covaxin at room temperature for longer time would be a key advantage in logistics, when it will receive permissions to be launched in the United States and European markets.

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