Assam Current affairs : In today’s daily Assam Current affairs season we will discuss about the topic “Biological E- Corbevax 2nd Made-In-India Vaccine” which in news recently thus its become super important for your upcoming exams.
What happened ?
• Aiming at a stiff vaccination target, the government has booked 30 crore doses of Hyderabad-based Biological-E’s Covid vaccine, which is still in clinical trials.
• The Health Ministry will make an advance payment of ₹ 1,500 crore to the company for what will be the second made-in-India vaccine to be used in the country after Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
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How Corbevax works?
• Corbevax is a “recombinant protein sub-unit” vaccine, which means it is made up of a specific part of SARS-CoV-2 — the spike protein on the virus’s surface.
• The spike protein allows the virus to enter the cells in the body so that it can replicate and cause disease.
• However, when this protein alone is given to the body, it is not expected to be harmful as the rest of the virus is absent.
• The body is expected to develop an immune response against the injected spike protein.
• Therefore, when the real virus attempts to infect the body, it will already have an immune response ready that will make itunlikely for the person to fall severely ill.
• Although this technology has been used for decades to make hepatitis B vaccines, Corbevax will be among the first Covid-19 vaccines to use this platform.
• Novavax has also developed a protein-based vaccine, which is still waiting for emergency use authorisation from various regulators.
Why Corbevax matters?
• This is the first time the Indian government has placed an order for a vaccine that has not received emergency use authorisation, Paying Rs 1,500 crore in advance to block an order that could vaccinate 15 crore Indian citizens.
• The Centre has provided major pre-clinical and clinical trial support towards the vaccine’s development, including a grant-in-aid of Rs 100 crore from the Department of Biotechnology.
About Biological E :
• Biological E, headquartered in Hyderabad, was founded by Dr D V K Raju in 1953 as a biological products company that pioneered the production of heparin in India.
• By 1962, it forayed into the vaccines space, producing DPT vaccines on a large-scale.
