The coronavirus pandemic has affected over 22.6 million lives and has cost the lives of over 792K individuals. Till now there has been no treatment or medication dedicated to the coronavirus and the only way it is being treated is by controlling the symptoms or the blood plasma therapy in some extreme cases.
The world has been hoping for a vaccine now and 150 potential vaccines are even under developing and testing. Countries including India, China, Russia and the US are working towards the development of the vaccine.
Companies like Moderna and AstraZeneca are speculated to come up with 1 billion doses of the vaccine by the next year.
More on Russia’s Vaccine…
Russia’s COVID vaccine is named “SPUTNIK V” in honour and tribute to the world’s first satellite that had been launched by the Soviet Union. The small- scale human trials of the vaccine have been conducted with the results yet to be made public.
Once the Domestic Regulatory gives a green flag, the trials would be conducted on 40,000+ individuals in 40 centres across Russia. The trials would solely be on a volunteering basis and the participants will have medical check-ups. The trials will be administered by a foreign clinical research organization to certify that the data collection matches International norms and regulations.
It is a two-shot jab vaccine which involves two unidentical vectors of the human adenovirus. The vector has a substantial record of its usage in earlier vaccines and its historic data gives it an edge over other potential vaccines. In the previous trials, a boost in the immune system of the targeted had been seen but the lasting of the effect is still unclear and it may react differently on every individual.
“Some may develop very strong protective immunity, while others may not. In such cases, (coronavirus) infection may be possible, but the illness should, theoretically, have light symptoms. And in general, the share of such people will be very small.” stated Vladimir Chulanov, the head specialist in infectious diseases at the Russian Health Ministry.
Russia has been looking forward to partner with India in mass production of the vaccine.
“We believe that they (India) are capable of producing the Gamaleya vaccine and it is very important to say that those partnerships will enable us to cover the demand that we have,”emphasized Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund
Reports suggest that the Indian embassy in Moscow has gotten in touch with Gamaleya to discuss the safety of the vaccine.
Where is India in the vaccine race?
Covaxin by Bharat Biotech and ZyCOV-D by Zydus Cadila, the domestic companies developing the vaccine have almost finished the phase II clinical trials. The trials are speculated to end by the end of this year.
“We will know the efficacy of vaccines by then. The Oxford vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India is already being produced parallelly so that the time required to market it will be reduced to a larger extent. The other two vaccines may require at least a month more to produce it and introduce in the market in a phased manner. It is expected that if the vaccine trial results are good, we could be ready to use the vaccine by the first quarter of 2021.”vocalized Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister
Bharat Biotech along with the National Institute of Virology has conducted the Phase I of human trials of COVAXIN while the Double-Blind Phase II trial is currently underway.
India also recently came up with the Corona Kavach Policy to protect yourself from the high bills in case you test positive for COVID-19.