Tag: corona vaccine

Will you take Chinese vaccine?

Made in China, accept it or not but for many of us this label has become synonymous with low cost and low quality. So how true is the stereotype and what has Chinese done to deserve such a bad reputation? Well the list goes long, the latest item is vaccine.

China has sold vaccines to the World which may not be working. It is currently exporting vaccine to 43 countries with:-

  • a total of 742 million doses that have been sold,
  • 22 million doses have been donated,
  • 262 million doses have been delivered.

China is exporting 3 major vaccines:-

  1. Sinovac
  2. CanSino BIO
  3. Sinopharm

But do these vaccines even work? Let’s look at some of the countries those have received Chinese vaccines.

Mongolia

In Mongolia, more than half of the population is fully vaccinated but daily infection has risen by more than 70% in the last 2 weeks, and they’re using the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm. No doubt Mongolians are questioning the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccine.

Bahrain

Bahrain an Asian country is witnessing a surge. There’s a sharp rise in the number of infections and this dispite of high levels of inoculation. How will China explain this? China’s Sinopharm vaccine, accounts for 60% of the inoculation. Bahrain is now administering a Pfizer booster shot for those who have received both doses of vaccine.

Seychelles

Seychelles of East Africa, 61% of the population have been vaccinated with just 100,000 of people. This island nation has the highest vaccination cover globally. It’s daily average cases rose up to 400 with 37% of the fresh infections reported in fully vaccinated people. This is the result of the Chinese vaccine they’re using which is Sinopharm.

UAE

The United Arab Emirates has vaccinated more than 38% of the population with more than 51% have received first dose and yet daily new cases exceeded to 1700. And they are also using the vaccine Sinopharm that was received from China and UAE is also questioning the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine and also giving a Pfizer booster shot to Sinopharm recipient.

Countries who have refused

Philippines

In the month of May, the Philippines President apologized and asked China to take away Sinopharm vaccine back. He sent back the doses because Chinese cure is unproven.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has also refused to recognise certificates of Sinovac and Sinopharm. It is recommending Pfizer and AstraZeneca instead.

Do Chinese vaccines works in China

There’s a fresh out break of new infections that are been reported in the Guangdong province of China. Guangdong with its capital Guangzhou, accounting of 90% of the confirmed cases. Health authorities of the capital blames the delete variant which was first identified in India. A strict lockdown has been composed there overseas arrivals are being quarantined, million have forced to indoors.

Hence its proven that the rumours of China had conquered the pandemic was false. The virus is unpredictable, it keeps spreading. Vaccines are not full proof in preventing infections but if one vaccine has repeatedly proven ineffective then it’s time for some reflection.

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COVAXIN phase-1 trails completed

Coronavirus, Covid-19 Vaccine COVAXIN Latest Update: Rohtak PGIMS ...

Till now corona virus has affected more that 200 countries and has infected more than 16 million people. Due to the complications developed by this virus around 644k people have lost their lives. It not only causes fever and cold but also develops critical infections in the body which affects the lungs and makes breathing a difficult choice. So far many scientists are working on this virus and are trying hard to understand them. But in order to save the lives of people, many countries were forced to impose lockdown since there is no other option left to reduce the fatality rate.

Also many researchers have developed few medicines such as remdesiver to cure mild and moderate corona symptoms but they are still unable to treat the critical patients and sometimes such medicines also don’t work for mild symptoms as well. So basically there is no proper and fixed treatment for this virus. The only thing which can be game changer is a vaccine which yet to be developed.

Many countries including India is already in the race of producing a valid vaccine which can generate antibodies against the virus. India’s first indigenous covid-19 vaccine known as COVAXIN was developed by bharat biotech in collaboration with ICMR ( Indian council of medical research ) and NIV ( national institute of virology ). The vaccine initially got a nod from DCGI ( Drug controller general of India ) to perform phase I and II human clinical trails. Also the phase I trail started in the early month of july and successfully completed the first part of phase -I trail.

The first part of phase – I trail of COVAXIN was completed on saturday at the PG institute of medical sciences, Rohtak. And fortunately all the results were found to be encouraging which gave COVAXIN a positive nod to go froward for it’s 2nd part of phase – I trail.

India’s Vaccine Shortage

India’s Vaccine Shortage

India’s Prime Minister announced ‘Teeka Utsav’ to promote covid-vaccination as well as to counter the second wave of infection. But on the contrary vaccinations have been declining afterwards.

Experts believe that herd immunity stage needs to be achieved to counter the spread of any infection i.e., more than 70 per cent of the population needs to be vaccinated. According to some studies, it can take almost 16 months to vaccinate 70 per cent of India’s population with first dose and almost 9 years to vaccinate them with both first and second doses.

A popular science journal and the Indian Medical Association itself has criticized India’s vaccination program. India, popular as ‘Vaccine factory of the world’ has been running short of vaccine supply which ultimately led to a situation where many Indian states are unable to achieve their vaccination targets. Odisha had to shut 60 per cent of it’s vaccination centers due to shortage of vaccines in the month of May.

As people are unable to find vaccines at their nearest centers, they are going to other cities to get vaccinated. For example some people residing at Gurgaon had to go to Manesar whereas some Delhites are going to Rohtak and residents of Rohtak are visiting villages to get vaccinated. Thus villagers have complained of not having enough vaccines left for the residents.

Causes

The first reason of the shortage is the insufficient capacity of the manufacturers. According to the targets of the central government of India, almost 10 crore doses of vaccines need to be manufactured every month but the current capacity of the manufacturing companies combined together lies at 7.5 crores which would increase to 11 crores by July. Another fact to be kept in mind is Serum Institute manufactured vaccines are not solely for the Indian population. SII needs to supply 40 per cent of its vaccines to Covax which is an initiative of several organizations including WHO to supply vaccines to more than 90 economically backward countries.

Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine approved by India can’t really help either as the manufacturer’s capacity lies at 500k only. However the initiative to manufacture Sputnik V in India might prove helpful.

Another reason is the lack of orders by the Indian government to the manufacturers. Under Operation Warp Speed the USA placed advanced orders with many vaccine companies even before their vaccines were approved and even though some vaccines didn’t get approved still USA had guaranteed supplies of vaccines for its population. Whereas the Indian government did not place any such advanced orders. Reasons behind this might be the lack of funds to place advanced orders. Poonawala from SII said in an interview that they couldn’t improve their capacities as there were no orders from the government of India. The statement was justified afterwards but if there lies truth in such statement, its the failure of the government of India. Another reason of not placing advanced orders might be the assumption that the infection was over at the end of the first wave of infection.

Under ‘Vaccine Maitri’ program India exported large quantities of vaccines to other countries. From January to April 2021 more vaccine doses were exported than vaccinated Indian residents.

First order placed for vaccines by the Indian government was 1.65 crore doses in the month of January 2021 and 1.5 crore doses in February. The government of India placed the first huge order of 12 crore doses in March 2021 when the country was already struck by the second wave of infection.

Adar Poonawala of SII said the vaccine shortage may go on till July 2021. Several experts have also warned about third and fourth wave of infection in the country as the infection continues to spread within the population alongside the slow vaccination.

The situation got even more complicated when the central government ordered states to arrange vaccine supplies for themselves. Many states released global tenders. Many companies whereas were not ready to deal only with central governments of countries. The chaos was ended with the central government of India announcing vaccinations free of cost for all its adult population and supplies being sent to states by the center after Supreme Court intervened the matter.

Possible Solutions

  1. Government may help the manufacturers with funds and supplies to increase their capacity. Other new manufacturers may also be looked forward to maximize the vaccine production.
  2. We should also start preparing for upcoming challenges of the pandemic. In the current situation the problem may lie with vaccine supplies but soon when the supplies would be sufficient the awareness about vaccines would prove to be the main issue.

For example many rural residents of Tamil Nadu are reluctant to vaccines after a famous actor Vivek died following inoculation. And if such problems prevail for longer, herd immunity stage would be harder to achieve.

3. As epidemiologist Giridhara Babu said the authorities should go for detailed district plans and social mobilization strategies to reach vulnerable communities.

Is it a Happy New Year?

The Year 2021, this year seems like giant waves of oceans going down and down. Our country gets badly downtrodden due to the social, political, and economic issues that continue to prevail, due to an invisible enemy in the form of the deadly virus.

This virus shows no mercy to anyone doesn’t matter which class, culture, and religion person belongs to; it spares no one. As the cases went up, so did the false WhatsApp forwards, chaos, panic-buying, and fear among people. The increased cases and dilemma is frightful people. As people taking hurt over their mental health, too.

From the news of unknown viruses to fearing even a slight increase in body temperature, to look for medicines and oxygen cylinders, people have experienced it all. In the beginning. To ‘deal with a spontaneous and devastating situation the Indian government announced an out-and-out 40-day lockdown. Everything came to a standstill—except divisive journalism and discrimination.

While most people don’t have the privilege and luxury to stay home, quarantine isn’t a blessing for many. it lead rise in mental illness since the coronavirus outbreak. The level of stress and anxiety has heightened.

The apprehension about job security, draining of savings, or unavailability of basic things for survival, ambiguity. People who were already suffering from mental illnesses looked upon engaging themselves in outdoor activities and meeting their dear ones as the only coping mechanism. Now they have no option but to dive into the same misery they were battling. along with that crimes such as theft, murder, extortion, molestation, etc., are increasing at an unpredicted rate

COVID-19 is just not another death-dealing health hazard. It has more profound implications that society would have to bear post lockdown too.

TALKING ABOUT COVID VACCINATION

As a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic, life as we know it has changed in profound ways. There have been over 140 million incidents and over 3 million deaths worldwide to date. To combat this crisis, scientists from all over the world came together in a once-in-a-lifetime effort. As a result of this global research effort, a number of vaccines have been granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)/Listing (EUL). In the United States, the introduction of three vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen promises to put an end to what has been a particularly bad year. As of April 14th, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) has granted EUL to four vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, SK BIO AstraZeneca, Janssen (J&J), and Serum Institute of India, with several more awaiting investigation, including Moderna (approval decision pending end of April). At least one country has approved a total of 14 vaccines.

OUR TIMELY RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC WAS INFLUENCED BY ANIMAL RESEARCH

Animal research is more important than ever before, both in fundamental research, such as understanding immune system control, and applied research, where that expertise is applied to the production of cures and other therapeutic strategies. The timescales from bench to bedside are often long in Animal Research, making it difficult to understand the immediate human value of such science. Consider the fact that in the United States, we were able to manufacture three vaccines with an EUA for COVID-19 in less than a year. How was it possible to pull off such a feat? Such rapid progress was possible because of Animal Research into coronaviruses over the last decade, which included Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as well as decades of prior research into mRNA vaccines, as we wrote at the start of the pandemic.

Vaccines (like all other medications) are generally tested in animals before going through clinical (human) trials to ensure their safety and effectiveness. However, due to the urgency of the COVID-19 hazard, safety and efficacy testing for some of the 110 candidate vaccines and treatments produced (e.g., Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine) was accelerated, and Phase 1 clinical trials began—where the smallest number of human subjects is usually enrolled. That isn’t to suggest that those candidates’ protection and effectiveness weren’t tested in animal models until going into clinical trials. Instead of testing safety and effectiveness prior to clinical trials, animals were tested concurrently with human trials.

Vaccine

A vaccine works the immune system to recognize and combat pathogens, either viruses or bacteria. To this do the certain molecules from this pathogen must be introduced to the human body to trigger in an the immune responses. Then these are called as the antigens, they are present of all the bacteria. By the injecting these are the antigens into the body by the immune can safely can learning to the recognize them as hostile invaders, produce antibodies, remember the future. If then the bacteria of virus reappears, the immune system immediately and attack aggressively as well as the before the pathogen spread and cause sickness.

POLIO VACCINE – CDC recommends for the children gets of the four doses of polio vaccine. They are should one dose of the following ages which is he 2 months, months old, 6 to the 18 months of old, and 4 to 6 years old children. Why polio dose is important of vaccine? – The children’s are united state should inactivated polio vaccine to protect against by the polio or poliomyelitis. They should gets the four doses. One doses at each following ages are the – 2 months. 4 months 6 months 4 through 6 year old

When the children who is travelling to a country where risk of getting polio icon should complete the series are the leaving for the trip. If a children are not to be series before leaving, an accelerated as follows.

1 dose of the age 6 weeks The second dose of 4 more weeks after first dose. The third dose 4 more weeks after second The fourth dose of 6 more months after the third dose.

Over 100 studies are the way to find of vaccine for COVID -19. Vaccination is the one of the world’s most successful health intervention, saving as many as 3 million lives every year. But the further 1.5 million death of year could be avoided with the improved global coverage. Cost of the conflict and vaccine hesitancy are the barriers. Vaccination is the most of successful important development in the human health and saving million of lives a year, according to the world health organization.

In the china where as the outbreak was the first reported are the five vaccine already being in of the human and government say that is in of the ready to end of year. Now the transition is reduce to a reduced serum the medium for human diploid cells without sacrificing cells growth expression, The reduced medium is a combination of two medium which is support to vaccine manufacture under serum free condition with diploid cells such as the growth may be the accomplish with 2% Serum free.

some time to take for cure with the help of vaccine against the diseases – The vaccine is may be month or a year of to the complete, then since a sufficient time of period must be elapse for the subjects to read the vaccine and develop the required antibodies.

BENEFITS – he vaccine is can be freeze dried stored because there no risk killing the pathogen as there is with live attenuated vaccine, they are also safer without any risk of the virus or Bactria mutating back into its the diseases causing forms.

Russia Successfully complete trial of first COVID-19 Vaccine.

In MOSCOW state of clinical trail of vaccine which is produced by Russian institute of Epidemiology and microbiology on 18th June. The university has completed test and it was world first vaccine against by the coronvirus .

The director of the MOSCOW university of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector- Borne Diseases at sechenov, the objective of the stage of the way to the vaccine’s safety for human health, which was the successfully done. “The vaccine is confirmed. Lukashev told to sputnik for the safety of those vaccine that are in market. The vaccine development situation with the possibility of scaling up production.

The pandemic situation acted as only the institution but as a scientific and research technology center is the creation must important and complex produce as a drug. Vaccine is starting preclinical studies and protocol development, and clinical trial are currently underway.

The first trial of first group of 18 volunteers group of 23 volunteers. All volunteers, who were between ages of 18 to 65, has the spend 28 days in isolation, in the prevent them from of contracting to other infections. They are will be monitored for 6 months of their discharge as well.

VACCINE AND TREATMENT FOR COVID -19. Vaccine The world Health Organization is lists of the Russian vaccine in their are three phases in 1 of the clinical trial and any vaccine get approved of large scale production, undergo of three human trials.

The 9 Lakh marks in India and highly contagious virus which is a already claimed more than 23000 thousand of people lives.As the 8 May, two medications Trusted source had received emergency use authorization (EUA) from the food and Drug Administration (FDA). The remdesivir and a drug used to sedate people on a ventilator.

The EUA March for the antimalarial drugs chloro quine and hydrocholoro quine, but later revoked it Trusted Source after studies showed that they are unlikely be effective in treatment for COVID-19. An EUA allows doctor use to the drugs to treatment people with COVID-19 even before the medication have through the formal FDA approval process.

These drugs are still the beings tested trials to see the whether they are effective COVID – 19. This steps is needed to make the sure the medications are safe for this particular use and what proper dosses should be. It could be month before treatment area available that are known against COVID- 19. It could be even longer for the vaccine.

EIDD – 2801 This drug was creat by scientists at a nonprofit biotech owned by the Emory university. Research in mice has shown that it can reduce replication of multiple corona virus. Pharmaceutical company Merck and Ridge back Bioterapeutics LP signed an agreement in may to develop this drug. It already being tested in a clinical trial in the united kingdom. Unlike remdesivir, EIDD-2801 can be taken orally, which would, make it available to a larger number of people.

MERIMEPODIB (VX-497)

This drugs are development by the Viral Clear Pharmaceutical. has been shown by previously to have antiviral and immune- suppressing effects. It was tested against hepatits C but had only modest effects

The company is running a phase II trial of this drug. People with their will be randomized to receiver either by the merimepodib with placebo. The company hope have to result by late summer of this year.

corona virus vaccine

As expected in recent news , corona virus vaccination can be launched on 15 august 2020 but now the vaccine for COVID-19 can be expected only by early next year, a parliamentary panel was informed on Friday. The House panel of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Climate heard presentations by the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the principal scientific adviser to the government on Centre’s preparedness for COVID-19.

Sources said that the panel was informed that a COVID-19 vaccine could be available only by early next year. The panel which is chaired by senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, saw six other members in attendence for the meeting.

This was the first meeting of the panel since the country wide lockdown to curb the novel coronavirus outbreak was imposed on March 25.

On July 2, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a statement had announced that it would partner with Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) to fast-track clinical trials of the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine (BBV152 COVID Vaccine).

In an official statement, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava stated that ICMR aims to launch the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by August 15.

  • COVAXIN has become the first vaccine candidate developed in India to receive the DCGI nod to conduct phase 1 and 2 clinical trials
  • The ICMR’s August 15 deadline for the India’s first indigenous coronavirus vaccine has created confusion among experts.
  •  A safe and effective vaccine is the best way to control and finally end the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus. With more than 200 candidates being developed across the world, vaccine development is moving at unprecedented speed. Joining the global race to create a safe vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Indian researchers will soon start testing the country’s first indigenous coronavirus vaccine candidate, COVAXIN, on 1,100 people in two phases – phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. Developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with Indian Council Medical Research (ICMR) – National Institute of Virology (NIV), the experimental inactivated vaccine is derived from a strain of SARS-COV-2 virus isolated by ICMR-NIV, Pune. COVAXIN has demonstrated safety and immune response in preclinical studies.
  • The world urgently needs a COVID-19 vaccine, which will help prevent and reduce the risk of infection, as well as resultant complications. However, there’s also a growing momentum of skeptics raising doubts about future vaccine programmes against other infectious diseases – with safety being a major concern. As COVID-19 continues to spread, pathways of vaccine development are changing in ways as researchers race against time to create a safe jab by shortening process time from the usual 15- to 20-year timeline to one that might be as short as one year. Perhaps, the ICMR’s 40-day target to launch Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine by August 15 has caused alarm among scientists and some in the medical fraternity. While the research body has clarified that the date was ‘not a deadline’, several experts have warned against any hasty solution that may compromise standards of scientific rigour.
  •  Experts, familiar with vaccine trials, including the AIIMS Director, New Delhi, have already said that such deadlines may not be met, given the vaccine is yet to undergo the phase 2/ 3 trials and still there are a few more stages to go through before it could get FDA regulatory approval for production, which in itself is a time-consuming task.

So, even if clinical trials vaccine is in accelerated mode all the world ( multi-centric trials), the whole process of vaccine approval by FDA to vaccine production and coming to market for effective distribution will not be before August 2021.

  • Right now we are in a situation, where desperate time needs desperate measures – and at the fastest speed, it takes 12 to 18 months. Post-approval by the FDA, it should take around 1 – 1.5 years for the massive production of billions of vaccine doses.
  • Hence, on the safer side, it looks like August 2021 for a viable COVID vaccine to enter the market.

So, we should maintain the precautions, use of face mask, hand sanitizer and social distancing now is the only medicine of covid-19 till covid-19 vaccine launch.