Working to administer vaccine nasal drops: Bharat Biotech CMD
Hyderabad: Administering the Covid vaccine will be a tough job. To cover the 1.3 billion population in India, there will be a need for a 2.6 billion doses as well as equal number of syringes and needles as the vaccine being developed now is a two-dose vaccine, said Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of vaccine maker Bharat Biotech.
To deal with this, it now working on a new vaccine that can be delivered as a nasal drops. This will be easy to administer and even can be handled by the Anganwadi workers in the rural areas, he said.
This will also ensure that the vaccine doses are not diluted, which was seen earlier in some cases. The company will also partner with other nations to supply the doses as vaccine is now an issue of nationalism every where country wants to have its own vaccine for security reasons, he said.
Participating in ISB’s Deccan Dialogue, which brings policymakers and industry on to a common platform, he said the company has BSL III facility to make vaccines on a large scale. It is the only company now to have this facility and China has now embarked on creating this. The same is not even available in the US, he said.
“I want India to offer the dosage to all in about a year. That is a dream. India can also evolve a model for small populations. Indian vaccine industry is on par with the international players but recognition is missing because we are Indian companies. Two out of three children getting vaccinated globally are using doses made in India. We are far ahead compared to many peers,” he said.
About 40,000 unknown viruses are existing right now and only 10,000 viruses can hop in from animals to animals and to humans or from animals to humans. “What we are seeing in the form of Covid is only a sample. It is getting more focus because it has caused huge economic disruption. Otherwise, this is just a sample,” he said.
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