On Wednesday, an Indian company, Bharat Biotech which is a vaccines and bio-therapeutic manufacturer has announced that they have made a breakthrough in the process of producing a vaccine to fight the deadly mosquito Zika virus responsible for causing some serious birth defects in kids.
Bharat Biotech had started working on the Zika virus a year back and this is what CMD Bharat Biotech, Krishna Ella, has to say in this connection, “We believe we have an early mover advantage in developing the Zikavac and we are probably the first in the world to file for global patent for Zika vaccine candidates.”
He further maintained, “We have two candidate vaccines in development. One of them is an inactivated vaccine that has reached the stage of pre-clinical testing in animals.”
Referring to a report by WHO, Ella stated that Brazil is the most suffered place among the 23 countries where Zika is present at the moment. In 2015, nearly 3530 cases of microcephaly (serious birth defect) have been reported in Brazil which are strongly doubted to be caused by Zika.
Ella added, “We hope to announce the arrival of Zikavac to the world as early as possible.”
Mosquitoes of Aedes genus are responsible for spreading Zika virus. These mosquitoes bite during the day time and they breed even in the smallest pool of water. Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile virus are also caused due to mosquito-transmitted infection.
In the words of Dr Sumathy, Director, R&D, Bharat Biotech, “Considering that women of child-bearing age and pregnant women are the prime target group for Zika virus vaccine, we consider safety as the overriding factor in the development of a new vaccine for this virus. The vaccine methods developed early on, before the devastating consequences of the epidemics in Brazil came to light, provided us a push to accelerate vaccine development.”
Ella further told that presently the firm is concentrating on the scale up and characterization of the vaccine product.
In a way, production of this vaccine to fight the Zika virus can be considered the pharmaceutical win of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make In India campaign. What’s more, it adds to the glory of our country and there is not the least doubt about it!! At one fell swoop, it is something every Indian will be proud of and with this production, India has emerged out to be a mighty nation which has proved that it’s not less than other country of the world!