Hyderabad: Bharat Biotech is targeting to make one billion doses of its Covid-19 intranasal vaccine annually while it is on track to achieve one billion doses of Covaxin, India's first indigenous Covid vaccine.
The Hyderabad-based vaccine maker has already approached the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for approval to conduct phase-III trials of its intranasal vaccine.
Intranasal vaccine (BBV154) has the potential to prevent transmission and its Phase-III trials are expected to commence in 2022."This non-invasive, needle-free, easy to administer vaccine is suitable for kids and adults. It is easy to scale the production to meet the global demand," sources in Bharat Biotech told IANS.
Nasal vaccine can also be used as a booster dose against variants of concern. It can be given as a booster dose in combination with two doses of any intramuscular Covid vaccine.
"Our vaccine for children was evaluated in the 2-18 years age group. It has now received approval for the 12-18 years age group from DCGI. To begin, India will administer the vaccine for children between 15 and 18 years. We have augmented our production, and are well prepared to support this programme," sources said.
The vaccine maker says that Covaxin is formulated uniquely such that the same dosage can be administered to adults and children alike. With an established proven safety and efficacy record in adults for the original variant and subsequent variants, Covaxin is very well suited for children.
Also read: Covaxin likely to be only Covid vaccine available for children of 15 to 18 yrs
The development of Covaxin has contributed to India's being self-reliant against Covid-19 and has successfully thwarted the onslaught of variants of concern largely, ensuring that severity, and hospitalisation is minimised to those administered during 2021.
The R&D and manufacture of Covaxin and other Covid-19 vaccines has developed partnerships with several Indian academic institutions and companies such as the ICMR, NIV Pune, IICT Hyderabad, Indian Immunologicals, Bibcol, Haffkine Institute, Hester Biosciences, Biovet, etc.
This is exactly the vision of Dr. Krishna Ella, whereby innovation and product development results in improving the science ecosystem and leads to nation-building. India's preparedness to deal with pandemics has become strong, and we will lead the world through major advancements in the development of vaccines and manufacturing prowess.
IANS
