Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and many other vaccinations are currently dominating the world. However, as new variants getting developed in different countries, there has been a breakthrough in the production and application of new vaccines. Managing Director of Zydus, Dr Sharvil Patel shared his views on the same and spare out a few details with regards to their new DNA based vaccine.
“We did submit our emergency application of our DNA based vaccine, and we submitted our interim data as well. We have vaccinated, done the trial on the large number of Indian population, close to 28,000 volunteers. It has been tested in a 3-dose format. The good part of the vaccine is that it is an intradermal application. So far, we have seen it has very good safety, compared to the placebo, so no serious or adverse events and the efficacy is about 66.06 per cent related to the current pandemic,” said Zydus MD.
Dr Patel puts out a few pointers stating that their DNA based vaccine will help people in the long run. He said that they tested this vaccine in 1000 children, and it has found to be safe and efficacious, which makes it the best and important aspect of this vaccine. He further said that this vaccine can be applied multiple times and from the future point of view, adapting to new strains, which may be necessary if we see the kind of things that are happening, will be a breakthrough.
Though many people are being vaccinated, there are still many areas or places across the globe where vaccination has not taken place. “What the need is to have more vaccines, we obviously need to vaccinate large population within our country and globally. I think the critical thing we believe that all manufacturers or the governments or the institutions can do is to partner to make sure we make more vaccines available. I think we know all that, vaccines have different benefits and associated risks, but I think the need of the hour today is to make sure we allow free vaccination to happen across the globe. So that we know, this is one way of reducing the pandemic that has happened in different waves,” said Dr Patel.
He added that countries should leave the whole discussion about which vaccine, why this vaccine, infact, there should be an approval to give a vaccination, if the doses can be made available. He further added that the global supply chain is overly complex, it is highly interdependent on each other, so the free flow of vaccines should be allowed.
He believes that soon, getting jabs for coronavirus will go flu way as it will become an annual vaccination or some sort of booster dose that may be required to fight against new variants.
