India has outperformed any country in the world in vaccination: Krishna Ella, CMD, Bharat Biotech.
Bharat Biotech Chairman and Managing Director Krishna Ella on Sunday said that India has outperformed any country in the world in terms of affordability and people-to-people access to COVID-19 vaccines. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is proud to have the world’s largest vaccination programme, and more than 54 crore people have already taken the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Prime Minister also lauded the people involved in vaccine manufacturing in the country and said that India will not have to depend on the outside world for vaccines against the coronavirus.
Highlighting the enormity of the task of vaccination, Ella said, “When you have 1.3 billion people to be vaccinated in a given period, it’s challenging.”
America has more vaccines than India, but only 160 million people have been vaccinated there.
“In India, I am proud to say that we have done a great job,” he said.
“We’ve done better in terms of affordability and people-to-people access. We’ve done better than any other country in the world,” Ella told Times Now India at 75: The Freedom Summit.
About Bharat Biotech’s contribution and efforts with respect to the vaccination efforts, Ella said that the company has also developed an intranasal vaccine for COVID-19, in addition to Covaxin.
“We are working on combining covaccine post-nasal, so that covaxin promotes the system of innate immunity and then by the nose which produces three immune responses – IgG, IgA and then mucosal immunity,” he said.
He said that all three immunity are powerful and can protect a person from getting infected.
“We may have a lot of data coming in the next two months. So, we’re not only working on it, but we’re also working on a booster dose of Covaxin,” said Ella.
When asked whether a third dose is required, Ella replied in the affirmative and said, “Yes, we will give the data to the government, it is for the government to decide with its regulatory agencies, but we are definitely working on the nose.” We have been. Plug in with it. If the nose works very well, we double our production capacity. We are expecting the same.”
The first nasal vaccine against COVID-19 developed by Bharat Biotech has received regulatory approval to conduct phase-II clinical trials, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) said on Friday.
“Bharat Biotech’s intranasal vaccine is the first nasal vaccine to receive regulatory approval for phase-II trials,” DBT said in a statement.
Phase-1 clinical trials have been completed in the age groups of 18 to 60 years, it had added. BBV154 is an intranasal replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus SARS-CoV-2 vectored vaccine.
Earlier on 6 August, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha had said that Bharat Biotech and three public sector enterprises would be supported to increase the production of the COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin. Used to be.
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