- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: Pramod Kumar
THE US medical research agency has said that Covaxin, developed by India’s Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research, will effectively neutralise both Alpha and Delta variants of coronavirus.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revealed that results of two studies of blood serum from people who had received Covaxin suggest that the vaccine generates antibodies that effectively neutralise these variants.
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It added that an adjuvant developed with funding from the NIH has contributed to the success of the vaccine.
The adjuvant used in Covaxin, Alhydroxiquim-II, was discovered and tested in a laboratory by the biotech company ViroVax LLC of Lawrence, Kansas with support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Adjuvant Development Programme.
Adjuvants are substances formulated as part of a vaccine to boost immune responses and enhance a vaccine’s effectiveness.
Covaxin has been administered to roughly 25 million people in India and globally so far, data shows.
Published results from a phase 2 trial of the vaccine indicate that it is safe and well-tolerated, the NIH said, adding that safety data from a phase 3 trial of Covaxin will become available later this year.
“Meanwhile, unpublished interim results from the phase 3 trial indicate that the vaccine has 78 per cent efficacy against symptomatic disease, 100 per cent efficacy against severe Covid-19, including hospitalisation, and 70 per cent efficacy against asymptomatic infection,” it said.
Anthony S Fauci, director of NIAID, said: “I am pleased that a novel vaccine adjuvant developed in the US with NIAID support is part of an efficacious Covid-19 vaccine available to people in India.”
According to the NIH, the NIAID Adjuvant Programme has supported the research of the founder and chief executive officer of ViroVax, Dr Sunil David.
The collaboration between Dr David and Bharat Biotech International of Hyderabad was initiated during a 2019 meeting in India coordinated by the NIAID Office of Global Research under the auspices of NIAID’s Indo-US Vaccine Action Programme.
45,951 new cases
India logged 45,951 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday (30) taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 30,362,848, while daily fatalities remained below 1,000 for the third consecutive day, according to the health ministry.
The death toll rose to 3,98,454 with 817 fresh fatalities, the lowest in 81 days.
Cumulatively, 333 million vaccine doses have been administered so far under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive. The active cases further declined to 537,064 comprising 1.77 per cent of the total infections.
The national Covid-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.92 per cent, the data showed.
As many as 1,960,757 tests were conducted on Tuesday (29) taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 410,100,044 while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.34 per cent.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 29,427,330 and the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data stated.
