If most of 2020 was consumed by fears of the dreaded Covid-19, now, despite two vaccines in our grasp, anxieties prevail over their adverse side-effects, post taking the jab. Besides hurdles like technical glitches in the vaccination process and inconveniences in getting vaccinated, there is also a lag in achieving vaccine targets. This has led to increasingly louder calls for adding a third vaccine to the existing two Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin with the most promising candidate being Russia’s Sputnik V, that uses two adenoviruses.
More so, because new variants have emerged to raise questions about the effectiveness of the existing vaccines against these. But as Dave O’Connor, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, says: “If your house is on fire, don’t wait until you have the perfect hose. People should get vaccinated with whatever effective vaccine they have access to, because this will help protect themselves and their communities by impacting the global viral load.”
However, the compulsion to have a third vaccine in the medical armoury arises from having a more extensive reach to get the entire population inoculated, and fast. It is a bonus that the one they are looking at — Sputnik V — has a high efficacy rate. While Covishield’s efficacy is 61 per cent, and Covaxin’s 81 per cent, Sputnik V has demonstrated an efficacy rate of 91.6 per cent in the interim analysis of the Phase-3 clinical trials, which included data on 19,866 volunteers in Russia who received both doses of the vaccine.
Sputnik V is being commercialised globally by Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). In September 2020, RDIF signed a pact with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, wherein the Indian drugmaker would conduct the bridging study and distribute doses to 100 million people if it were granted a licence. This was later increased to 125 million. In the last week of February, India’s drug authority asked Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, which is facilitating Sputnik V trials in India, to supply data on immunogenicity for going ahead with Sputnik V’s approval process.
Experts say that while on the one hand, India is supplying Covid-19 vaccines to neighbouring Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh, on the other, the country’s vaccine production and delivery capacity is being used by foreign vaccine manufacturing companies for the greater good. Therefore, to cater to the vaccination process in the world’s largest democracy, it would be imperative to bring in safer and more effective vaccines from other countries, they feel. Dr Giridhar Babu R, member, Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee, Karnataka, says, “More vaccines are needed here.
Back when Covishield was approved in India for vaccination, it was not approved seeing the India trial results, but the UK trial results (Oxford and AstraZeneca are developers while Serum Institute of India is its manufacturer). Similarly, looking at other trial results, we can have more vaccines approved. Sputnik V, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson are some vaccines which should be considered and approved in India. We need to vaccinate 7-10 million people per day in India, based on the existing human resource and infrastructure we have. If the pace is increased, we can cover more population and more vaccines can be of help.”
Dr AM Deshmukh, President, Microbiologist Society of India, says, “It is only by avoiding nationalistic policies and embracing global cooperation that countries across the world can beat the pandemic. It should be a global effort for humanity. India is already acknowledged as a key global production hub for having the largest vaccine manufacturing capacities in the world. Similarly, India should provide equitable access to its people to avail of the best Covid-19 vaccines developed across the world.”
Moreover, vaccines such as Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V are fit for Indian conditions since they can be stored between 2 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius, as against the mRNA vaccines which require extreme sub-zero temperature regimen like -70 degree to -20 degree Celsius for storage.
FRONTRUNNER VACCINES
SPUTNIK V
Sputnik V uses human adenovirus platform, unlike Pfizer and Moderna, which use messenger RNA, or mRNA. Sputnik V’s phase III clinical trial results show strong protective effect across all age groups. Also known as Gam-COVID-Vac, the vaccine uses a heterologous recombinant adenovirus approach using adenovirus 26 (Ad26) and adenovirus 5 (Ad5) as vectors for the expression of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The use of two varying serotypes, which are given 21 days apart, is intended to overcome any pre-existing adenovirus immunity in the population. Among major Covid vaccines in development to date, only Gam-COVID-Vac uses this approach.
IMPROVEMENTS IN PROCESS
With the onset of phase-3 vaccination from March 1 in Karnataka for senior citizens and people with comorbidities in the 45-60 age group, there were technical glitches in the CoWIN portal app. The first day of phase-3 was the worst, with several sites hit due to glitches in the portal. The health department has now allowed walk-in facility from Wednesday, and senior citizens and those with comorbidities find the process a lot smoother, as they can enter hospitals without registration. Hospitals arranged seating, snacks and water in some places for beneficiaries who were waiting for their turn. Citizens can carry any one photo ID — Aadhaar, voter ID, besides certificate of comorbidity. Healthcare and frontline workers have to carry employment certificate or official identity card.
Inputs from:
Iffath Fathima, Ranjani Madhavan/Bengaluru Prajna GR/Madikeri
Mahesh Goudar/Bagalkot/Vijayapura Prakash Samaga/Udupi Ramkrishna Badseshi/Kalaburagi Arunkumar Huralimath/Hubballi Raghu Koppar/Gadag
